After the community of Pughsville experienced significant flooding damage as a result of Hurricane Matthew in 2016, the City of Suffolk enlisted VHB to plan, design and implement stormwater improvement projects to rectify the worsening situation. This roughly 400-acre community consists of mostly residential scale development, places of worship, community parks, and densely wooded wetland areas, and was already prone to nuisance flooding during major rainfall events. Hurricane Matthew proved to be a historic and substantial storm event that caused many homes to flood and necessitated a declaration of a State of Emergency.
VHB provided an updated master drainage study of the watershed with options to remediate flooding without increasing flows downstream to the neighboring City of Chesapeake. We provided numerous options for remediation before settling on an option for construction improvements. For the Study and the Construction Plan Compliance, VHB’s water resources team provided PC-SWWW modeling to more accurately define areas of flooding risk, including high tailwater conditions and increased rainfall depths for each design storm event.
