Occoquan, Va. — When you live by the Occoquan River, there’s a few things you have to accept, like the possibility of flooding. But on Thursday night it wasn’t the river that toppled its banks, but the Ballywhack Creek which runs through town.
The stream inundated the small Town of Occoquan with flood waters never before seen by its mayor, Earnie Porta. “We knew that flooding from the river was unlikely, because during the hurricane we looked at the river levels and we know when it is going to come over its banks. But I was stunned to see the flooding from Ballywhack Creek and how fast the waters rose,” said Porta.
The mayor was at Maddigans Waterfront restaurant for dinner Thursday night when the flooding began. He walked outside the restaurant where water was already up to his ankles.
Refusing an umbrella, he went to direct traffic and told drivers – who normally cut through the town to beat traffic and get to nearby Old Bridge Road — to avoid the area because the creek was flooded.
“The creek turned Center Lane and Union Street into a river. People have lived in town for longer than I have, and say they remember back to a time when the creek was more manageable,” said Porta.
Much of the creek’s watershed is outside Occoqaun’s town boundaries and is in neighboring Prince William County, where crews from the Virginia Department of Transportation worked feverishly during the storm to clear stopped-up culverts along the creek.
Those clogged culverts contributed to the flooding of the town, said Porta.
“We’re going to need some help from the county and put some cost into what it’s going to take to maintain the culverts and the creek to stop this from happening again,” he added.
Amazingly, many of the businesses beside the river along Mill Street were not heavily damaged. A popular hangout, The Underground, had water that pooled outside their below-street level entrance, but the door held managing to keep the water out.
Nearly all of the shops and restaurants in town opened Friday.
On Saturday, Porta was scheduled to tour portions of the flood damaged town with Rep. Gerry Connolly (D 11th-Fairfax, Prince William).
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