Lewie Lawrence hears the same thing over and over from people living along Virginia’s rural Middle Peninsula: They have issues with flooding, but don’t know where to turn for help.
People say, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to pay for this, and nobody will call me back,” said Lawrence, a lifelong resident of the area and outgoing head of the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission. “That is a constant and consistent theme.”
That’s where the organization’s Fight the Flood program comes in. It aims to connect local property owners with practical solutions to issues that plague the region, such as failing septic tanks and shoreline erosion.
The Middle Peninsula is a low-lying region largely surrounded by water, making it particularly vulnerable to rising waters from climate change and sinking land.
“This challenge that we have is a coastal cancer that is eating up the tax base and eating up people's property,” Lawrence said. “The commission gave me a directive: ‘Don't let your people drown on your watch. Build programs and solutions to protect the tax base.’”
Fight the Flood allows home or business owners to register for free in an online database and report information about the issues they need help to address, such as structural flood damage or a constantly swamped yard.
Whenever possible, staff connect people in the database with ideas, funding opportunities or private partnerships.
“The homeowner offloads every piece of information about their flood mitigation problem: ‘How severe is it? Can you afford a loan? Can you partner with your neighbors? Is your septic system at risk? Is your bulkhead falling down?’” Lawrence said. “We have options for all of that, and we have funding for all of that.”
Fight the Flood launched somewhat quietly several years ago. More than 220 people have registered and the group has distributed more than $45 million so far in grants and loans.
Lawrence said officials worked on building capacity to handle the demand and are now trying to ramp up public awareness of the program.
It’s a simple concept, but takes a lot of work on the back end, including a computer system that uses geographic data from homeowners and overlays it with factors such as regional grant availability. Lawrence calls it “the Harry Potter resiliency sorting hat.”
Local leaders’ vision for the program goes beyond matching residents with public grants.
Lawrence hopes to create a “circular water economy” by encouraging businesses working in the resilience space to move into the Middle Peninsula.
Companies working on climate solutions need places to test them. The Middle Peninsula needs the solutions, making it a perfect partner, he said.
A North Carolina-based company, for example, has been working on a septic system that could better withstand sea level rise, using Gloucester as a testbed.
“We’ve got quite a few of these companies that are renting space, looking to set up manufacturing operations singularly because of the Fight the Flood program,” Lawrence said. “It’s solving the homeowner’s problem, but it's also attracting economic development.”
Much of local officials’ resilience work was born out of frustration with government funding or programs that often seemed to “disappear into a dark hole” before being realized, he said.
Money also often couldn’t be used for private property, which makes up a majority of shoreline in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
So, they built their own “war chest.”
“Grants come and go. They change by administration,” Lawrence said. “But once I'm collateralized with the loan money, I always have the ability to help.
“I want the Middle Peninsula to be the most resilient community on the Eastern Seaboard. So if you've got a flooding mitigation problem, people know to go to the Middle Peninsula.”
You can learn more and register at fightthefloodva.com.
