Virginia Beach City Council this week agreed to advance plans to build a barrier across Lynnhaven Inlet to protect surrounding neighborhoods from storm surge.
The barrier, which has not yet been designed or funded, would include a series of tide gates fronting the Lesner Bridge.
The concept is part of the city’s larger Coastal Storm Risk Management project with the Army Corps of Engineers.
Virginia Beach is in the midst of a $13.5 million, five-year feasibility study, through the same federal program that led to Norfolk’s planned floodwall. Norfolk also plans to build surge barriers across some waterways. (The Peninsula is also moving through the process.)
The Corps covers half of the study cost, leaving Virginia Beach responsible for almost $7 million. The initiative looks at strategies for protecting the city from catastrophic flooding during major storms. It does not focus on rain or daily tidal flooding.
Officials have pitched ideas including surge barriers at Rudee Inlet and the Eastern Branch of the Elizabeth River, elevating or floodproofing homes, installing living shorelines and building floodwalls in Sandbridge and the Oceanfront.
LJ Hansen, the Beach’s public works director, told council members Tuesday that the Corps asked the city to select one element to move into an initial design phase while the study continues. Staff recommended the Lynnhaven surge barrier.
As currently proposed, the project would include three sets of floodgates just north of the Lesner Bridge. They would usually remain open and allow boat traffic to pass through, but close ahead of storms projected to reach an established trigger level.
“As a tidal surge is coming in, the gate would be closed,” Hansen said. “The water level inside the gate, inside Lynnhaven, would stay at the level it was when the gates were closed, and water on the outside would continue to rise.”
Ultimately, the city hopes to connect the barrier to fortified dunes and seawalls stretching east to Fort Story.
Hansen said officials chose the project because the Lynnhaven’s connected tributaries and watershed affect a large number of people across the city, including the central resort area, Windsor Woods and Princess Anne Plaza.
He noted surrounding neighborhoods already experience significant flooding.
“We believe that just the presence of the gates today would make an active difference in how we manage water,” Hansen said. “So we feel like this is an actionable element that would be able to go into use and would have immediate impact.”
Council members agreed to move the barrier project forward, but some raised concerns about public transparency.
“There's not been a lot of information put out to the public on this project,” said Councilman Stacy Cummings. “As it gets closer, people are starting to focus more and more on it, and the idea of these floodgates is going to have an impact on people in that area — not just the navigable waters, but the property values and what it's going to do to the area around it.”
It would be “in our best interest” to keep people involved and informed, Cummings said.
There’s still a long way to go before a surge barrier would go up.
Officials plan to complete the overall feasibility study in May 2028, at which point the Lynnhaven barrier would be 35% designed. The federal Chief of the Army Corps would need to sign off on the report, and the city would need a lot more funding to start construction.
“There are many steps left and we will have a significant amount of community involvement in the process as it progresses,” city spokesperson Ali Weatherton-Shook said in an email.
