In the most recent statement from the National Weather Service, residents living along the Potomac were warned that the river would be at levels of moderate flooding through Thursday afternoon as a result of Hurricane Sandy.  On Tuesday night, the highest water level recorded was 7.6 feet in Georgetown and is expected to rise about another foot today. This is below the threshold for major flooding of 10 feet.

Originally, there had been fears of major flooding that could last into Friday but the risk has decreased since then. Flood banks were placed along the Washington Harbor in hopes of avoiding massive flooding of the area as occurred in April of 2011.

However, the floods still pose a risk because the waters overflowing into communities will carry approximately 240 million gallons of raw sewage according to The Washington Post. D.C. has designed its sewage system so that at times of heavy rainfall, sewage will flow directly into waterways. As a result, the water will be dangerous to touch for several days.

According to an article in the Georgetown Patch, most businesses along the harbor were open Tuesday afternoon although some remained closed as a precaution. Tony and Joe’s, a restaurant along the waterfront, was one such restaurant that was closed due to minor water leakage from the storm. They hoped to be back up and running by the weekend.

Photo of Potomac by Armando Trullo of American University Radio

This week’s frequent, heavy rainfall and short but powerful thunderstorms have done more than frustrate the move-out process and put a damper on usually fun, outdoor senior week events—today, for the second time in two months, the Georgetown Harbour complex has flooded.

According to Georgetown Patch, the Harbour’s flood gates were raised last night due to predictions of increasingly high tides, coupled with threats of rainfall last night and today. These walls were not used in the previous flood, which occurred on April 18, 2011, and led to store closings for a number of days and significant damage.

Photo: TBD

Update: Thompson Boat Center will not be open for crew practice tomorrow, but they will be offering bike rentals and other services not on the water. The Boat Center is not affiliated with Washington Harbour.

River swelling from high tides and heavy rainfall have flooded the Georgetown Harbor complex.

Water from the river has flooded several ground level restaurants along with an underground parking garage, necessitating the evacuation of several hundred people from the Waterfront area.

According to the Georgetown Patch, flood walls that are typically put in place to protect the harbor from flooding were absent during last night’s swell. Currently, crews are erecting flood walls around the harbor complex, although it is unknown at this point why the walls were not set up prior to the flooding.

h/t and photo: TBD

Heavy rainfall in March that burst the C & O Canal and contributed to major flooding of the Georgetown Waterfront caused damage that will cost about $2.8 million to repair, WTOP is reporting. The estimate comes from the National Park Service, which did not report where funding for repairs would come from.

Flooding began in mid-March, where locks in the Canal began to fail under pressure from heavy rainfall. The Potomac River rose 3-4 feet in most places during the storms, and 5-10 feet along the Georgetown Waterfront. Old Town Alexandria and sections of the Mount Vernon Bike Trail went underwater, too.

The damage includes a broken lock about a mile upstream of D.C. and the huge amount of mud, silt, and debris that the flooding deposited along the banks of the Potomac.

Via We Love DC

Photo from Flickr user bronpau used under a Creative Commons license

It started small—just a noise, like rain in the heating ducts. Then it turned into a leak, then a cascade. Dubbed “Copley Flood ’07″ by John Tincoff (SFS ’09), the abundance of water that burst into the fifth floor of Copley and poured through a light fixture and the elevator shaft down to the fourth floor created shock, confusion and a few displaced residents.

Read the rest of this entry »