"We were caught completely off guard": Chesapeake neighborhood still under water

CHESAPEAKE

After the skies cleared this weekend, residents of the high-end Culpepper Landing neighborhood in Deep Creek breathed a sigh of relief. But then the water kept on rising.

“It didn’t recede until way after the rain,” said Corey Snowden. He and his wife, Amanda, have been stranded in their home since Saturday, with water still high Tuesday afternoon, spilling from the street onto their front lawn.

Three days after Hurricane Matthew dumped more than 12 inches of rain on parts of Hampton Roads, flooding in Deep Creek is expected to continue.

That’s because just south of the area, water is spilling over from the Great Dismal Swamp and Deep Creek Canal. Lake Drummond in the swamp is a half-foot over “critical level,” according to Public Works Director Eric Martin.

That means the water bypasses control structures, flows into a feeder ditch to the canal and coats the entire swamp. Since the lake just “topped out,” the massive water flow should continue for several days, Martin said in a post on the neighborhood website NextDoor.

The city is pumping in these neighborhoods, “but this has limited effect given the volume of inflowing water,” he wrote. Floodgates have been open for days, and the Army Corps of Engineers has also installed hundreds of sandbags along the Deep Creek Lock for added protection.

On Tuesday afternoon in Culpepper Landing, deserted muddy cars still sat on medians and side streets, while pools of water collected in many areas, fish swimming in some.

Samuel Sands walked down Mill Creek Parkway with a backpack, toward his townhome at the back of the neighborhood. He had just checked on his car, which he abandoned Saturday after it stalled.

The water Tuesday was “still too much for a tow truck,” Sands said, shaking his head. He said he lived in southern Florida through Hurricane Andrew in 1992 but feels more stranded by this storm.

“I’m living on an island,” he said.

He and other homeowners said they were shocked by the flooding because they were told Culpepper Landing was not in a flood zone when buying their homes.

“I’m very upset,” said Soyrorian McLendon, who returned Monday from a weekend away to see neighbors canoeing to get around. “We’re just glad it didn’t flood our homes, and thank God it stopped raining.”

Tim Culpepper of Robinson Development Group, which built the subdivision, said the area is not a flood zone and the developer was “caught completely off guard.”

“It’s been awful,” he said. “It’s unlike anything I have ever seen.”

Culpepper said the development’s drainage – designed to accommodate even once-a-century rain events – flows into the Deep Creek Canal. So for the flooding to subside, water levels must go down in the canal.

The high water mark for the development was late Sunday into early Monday, he said.

Debby Unger spent part of Tuesday sweeping up mud and other debris that had settled in front of her home on Towhee Lane.

She and her husband, Charlie, also lived in Florida during Hurricane Andrew, so they prepared by putting items in their garage up high.

Still, “it was really kind of scary” to see the rain reach about 5 inches up the garage wall, Debby Unger said.

City officials urge homeowners to report hurricane-related damage to the city’s customer contact center by calling 757-382-2489 by 5 p.m. Wednesday so officials can factor it into their presidential disaster declaration.

To qualify for federal assistance, the city must meet a “threshold” of $802,174 in damages, officials told the City Council at a work session Tuesday.