00:00The Hampton Roads area in Virginia is a classic lesson in what a coastal community can learn from a beach
00:08event.
00:08A nor'easter dozens of miles away can have a lasting impact in terms of a wind-driven event at
00:15the beach
00:15that becomes an inland flooding event for the communities that live near it.
00:22For four days, a developing nor'easter remained off the mid-Atlantic.
00:26Hampton Roads felt its reach. Persistent northeast winds forced Atlantic water into the lower Chesapeake Bay
00:32and its network of tidal rivers faster than it could drain.
00:35Before one high tide fully receded, the next arrived, a process known as tidal trapping.
00:41The result? Flooded streets across Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and many other mid-Atlantic communities.
00:47I've been here for about 30 years now. We've pretty much had maybe one bad hurricane and a couple other
00:53little things,
00:53but we get a nor'easter usually at least a couple times a year.
00:58You just learn to deal with it, but unfortunately, sometimes you still make the mistake.
01:03Oh, I think I can go down that road. Nope, not so much.
01:07Along the Virginia Beach oceanfront, the story was wind and 8- to 12-foot waves.
01:12Storm surge reached just under 3 feet at Sewell's Point,
01:15while 1- to 2 feet of water covered parts of downtown Norfolk.
01:192- to 3 inches of rain added even more runoff to waterways already backed up by the tide.
01:24And it happened during an Atlantic hurricane season that has yet to produce a hurricane.
01:30Proof that a storm doesn't need a tropical name or a landfall to leave a major coastal footprint.
01:35This part of Hampton Roads, a textbook example of tidal trapping where water doesn't stay here for hours,
01:42it can stay for days, and despite all the planning from city managers,
01:47even a nor'easter that stays well offshore can have lasting impacts and affect communities for days, if not weeks.
01:54Reporting for AccuWeather, I'm Leslie Hudson.
