Flood of 1896
On Tuesday, September 29, 1896 – on the twenty-sixth anniversary to the day of the Flood of 1870 – Albemarle County and the Shenandoah Valley were hit by another significant flood event. According to hurricane data, this flood most likely occurred as a result of a tropical storm that was tracking through Virginia during this time. The rain, which fell steadily all day on September 30, 1896, increased in volume through the evening and culminated in torrential flooding that night.[1]
The City of Staunton was the hardest hit locality in the region. Lewis Creek and its tributaries overflowed their banks, devastating Staunton’s downtown. Houses, sheds, and stables were swept away creating a scene that resembled the destruction from an earthquake, not a flood. Residents commented that this flood exceeded the Flood of 1870 and compared it to the Great of Flood of 1889 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.[2]
While the Flood of 1896 was the most dramatic flood in Staunton’s history, flooding also occurred in other parts of the region, though not at such a level. In Rockingham County, three lives were lost. In Albemarle County, the storm worked wide-spread destruction in the Ivy neighborhood; the road to Charlottesville was strewn with fallen trees, bridges, fences, corn crops were destroyed or washed away; trees, chimneys and outhouses were blown down. The dam of Ivy mill was utterly destroyed and all the meal in the mill was sodden. The saw-mill at Mechum’s was left twisted about and useless, and the approach to the bridge at Mechum’s was washed away.[2]
Between the city of Charlottesville and Gordonsville fourteen telegraph poles were blown down across the track of the C. & O. Company. The trains were seriously delayed on the Southern. An embankment forty feet long and twenty feet wide was washed at Amherst, delaying all southern trains. The bridge at Free Union was washed away.[2]
The Flood of 1896, believed to be part of a tropical system, was short lived. The heavy, localized flooding was swift and its damage was difficult to grasp. The Flood of 1896 would become the flood of record for the City of Staunton.[1]
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References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Web. CSPDC Flooding Hazard History, retrieved September 11, 2023.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Web. The Storm At Ivy, Daily Progress, Friday October 2, 1896, retrieved September 11, 2023.