19 Shockoe Bottom firms sue city over Gaston flooding
SPECIAL REPORT: Anniversaries of Katrina & Gaston
Flooding from the remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston five years ago was the fault of the city of Richmond's inept operation of its sewers and negligent maintenance over decades, a lawsuit filed by 19 Shockoe Bottom businesses charges.
Gaston dumped a foot of rain in just a few hours on Aug. 30, 2004, sending a wall of water raging through the Bottom and causing flooding across the area. Eight people died in the city and its suburbs during the storm.
The lawsuit seeks at least $25 million in damages for the businesses, and asks for $350,000 in punitive damages to be awarded to each of the 19 businesses.
City spokeswoman Tammy D. Hawley said she couldn't comment on the lawsuit because no one in the city had seen it.
The plaintiffs' lawyer, in filing the suit, asked that it not be served on the city. The lawyer, Tommy Baer, would not say why.
No hearing date has been set yet.
"The city has been unwilling to take care of the problem. We feel Shockoe Bottom is still at risk of flooding." said Michael Ripp, one of the plaintiffs who owned the Havana '59 restaurant at the time of the flood.
Scott Poates, owner of the River City Diner, another plaintiff, said he couldn't comment on why he sued.
The lawsuit alleges that the city allowed debris to clog its sewers and retention basins and let a critical sewer gate rust shut, blocking one outlet for water to escape from the Bottom.
The suit says the city had left its 50-million-gallon Shockoe Retention Basin full of water before Gaston hit, despite knowing for days that the storm was headed for Virginia.
The lawsuit alleges that city officials waited until more than three hours into the storm to open a gate that allowed the massive East Gravity Outlet culvert just south of the southern end of 17th Street to drain floodwaters into the James River.
It further alleges that officials waited an hour or two after that to open gates that allow two large sewers to drain into the river. One was the main sewer draining the northern half of Richmond, which runs a bit to the west and parallel to the 17th Street Farmers Market. The other runs a few blocks to the east and drains 65 acres in the Bottom.
The city was unable to use its Dock Street pumping station to get water out of the Bottom during Gaston because it had not flood-proofed the building, the lawsuit alleged.
The lawsuit alleges that the city ignored and concealed the impact of changes to its drainpipes and sewers for decades..
"Well before Gaston, the city was aware its sewer system was inadequate to handle an extraordinary storm," the lawsuit says.
Smaller floods in 2003 and 2006 showed the sewers of the Bottom were badly clogged by debris, the lawsuit alleges.
In the past three years, the city has spent $20 million on drainage improvements. Some of the work involved cutting new, larger street drains in the bottom, but it also reconfigured connections between major sewers to avoid overloading the main sewer draining 65 acres of the Bottom.
It has also cleaned out a retention basin in the Shockoe Valley north of the Bottom, which the lawsuit alleged the city had allowed to become filled with silt and debris since 1968.
The business suing are: Bottom's Up Pizza; River City Diner; Havana '59; City Inc.; O'Brienstein's Inc.; 17.5 Uncommon Café; Kathy Emerson; 17th & Shockoe LLC; Cary & Shockoe LLC; Market Slip Commercial LP; Railroad Y LLC; 1705 East Main Street Associates; Jackson Warehouse; S&S Construction; Main Street Realty Inc.; Historic Housing LLC; Pine Alley Lofts LP; SWA Construction Inc.; and Sky Management Inc.
David Napier, owner of the Old City Bar in the 1500 block of East Main Street, said he considered joining the suit but declined because he felt his losses were less than other businesses suffered. Napier, who is president of the Shockoe Bottom Neighborhood Association, also said he believes the city has been trying to solve problems in the Bottom.
Contact David Ress at (804) 649-6051 or dress @timesdispatch.com.
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Reader Reactions
And if there is another flood, do the businesses sue again? Risk vs. Reward is well understood. We could all make a profit, if we could have the taxpayers accept our risk. Those folks in SB rolled the dice and lost. And now they want you and me and every other taxpayer in the City to reimburse them for not having a soupcon of foresight. Shockoe Bottom -an unsophisticated yet pretentious whine from nature’s finest sour grapes.
What about an answer to my question when this article first came out? What is the statute of limitations? I always thought it was 2 years.
What would be an appropriate response by the city, if they somehow lose, is to condemn the whole bottom. It’s obviously too risky to have anyone there whatsoever. Bulldoze it and make it a park.
Loggerhead, it didn’t flood like this before or since, did it? Does that suggest that just maybe the size of the storm was relevant?
The suit claims the flood was a result of city’s lack of action. If city can show that the storm was too big for this system (and that will be easy), regardless of the condition, where is the case?
still don’t get do you? Call all the civil engineers you want to say “that is a lot of water, nothing could have prevented it” and then ask, “did the city up hold their part and maintain the systems in place and use them accordingly”, if they say “no” then the water is a moot point, because of the city’s failure to act
It was actually closer to a 1500 year storm, something you cannot design for or even if you had a perfectly maintained system could prepare for. Almost all storm sewers in the country are designed to accomodate a 10 yr storm and to provide overland relief of a 100 yr storm. So when that much rain falls as it did during Gaston there is nothing the city could have done to prevent it. This suit is a waste of time because the city will call every notable civil engineer in the area to testify that the city could not of prevented this from happening.
reverend.. we could probably get some from the Richmond Raft Company.. ohhh that’s right.. another business that the city managed to run out of town..lol
I am surprised they didn’t want to be part of the suit..I am sure they had some loss of business due to the road in front of their business being closed for a year..
RUBBER LIFE RAFTS FOR EVERYONE!
The city has a duty to act and to maintain the systems in place..
Negligence on the city’s behalf is what opened them to the law suit. Had the city maintained the systems and gates, had they worked according to city plan and design, then there would be no merit for a suit.
Loggergead, how can you say it doesn’t matter? A perfect system would not help. I’m not suggesting the city didn’t screw up. I’m suggesting that it would no have mattered. I was actually hired by Salomonsky’s former attorney to look into this 2-3years ago. I had records that most have not seen.
The storm would have done virtually the same damage regardless of the condition of the stormwater management system.
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