Battery Park resident, weblogger, gives Wilder team a D+ on recovery efforts
“Bookstore Piet,” a resident of North Richmond’s Battery Park neighborhood and a local weblogger, has posted a detailed overview of the slow recovery efforts following the 2006 flooding of large sections of Battery Park. He’s not kind in his assessment of the city’s overall response — both immediately after the flooding and more recently:
Then, on what must have been a slow news day for out mayor, the Battery Park project was declared complete last December. Really? The pumps were still there. Sink holes in the tennis courts. Bulldozers and cranes were everywhere. Fences and no trespassing signs would lead one to believe the park not open. The floods, the clean-up crews in haz-mat suits… it all continued. Methink the mayor a bit hasty.
Spring arrived and the gashes in the ground were covered and they seemed to be moving on to cosmetics. The ground leveled, new playground equipment installed. Would we be able to use the park this summer? No. As far as I can tell we only get city work crews 2-4 days a month, and rarely two days in a row. At the rate they’re going I would expect the park to re-open about the time Finn finishes college.
…How did the city and our rock-star mayor do? I guess I would give them a ‘D+’.
Had they listened to the residents earlier about water back-ups they could have averted the whole problem by inspecting the storm drains around the park.
The houses were all built nearly 100 years ago and didn’t have problems until the city changed the topography of the area for the golf course. Yet, somehow, the city made it sound like we had all built in a flood zone and that we should feel grateful for the buy-outs.
…Communication during the flooding basically sucked and the police were way too authoritative.
Months of detours really sucked and the city has yet to do anything about adding or upgrading access to the neighbourhood.
We got a really cool red back-pack from the Red Cross with emergency supplies if we are ever stranded in our home.
The plans for the park look to be very family friendly and are designed to reduce the drug activity.
The pace of the work make me fear it may not be done in my lifetime.
The new drainage looks to be working under it’s first heavy test.
The all-important golf course is open – without which the water would have just naturally drained into Shockoe Valley…
That dude needs some serious fiber in his diet. Had he told someone of his omniscient powers that the sewer line was broken maybe it could have been avoided. Some neighbor.
For the two years prior to the collapse myself, and numerous other residents, called the city to complain that the drains were less effective with each passing rainstorm. Even with 6 to 10 feet of standing water the city did nothing. It was only after the collapse, and when the water levels passed the 40 foot mark that they noticed us.
Bookstore Piet is right. The city KNEW there were problems and that a main line had collapsed for a full two years prior. The Old Stone House sustained serious water damage and ruined computers. The City knew and did NOTHING.
There was 10 feet of standing water in the park? And still how do you or anyone else know it was already collapsed? There are drains all over this city that aren’t up to standards from years of no one doing anything about it.
Dude, you need to learn how to read. We complained before it collapsed. Try to follow the complete story instead of using your omniscient powers to make assumptions.
I don’t recall there being 30 feet of water around there but have seen some minor ponding. A few feet, maybe. Of course, it is hard to remember since it hasn’t rained in the last six months but but we need it!
You can thank Calvin Jamison for the Golf Course. I didn’t know they filled in a valley to build it. Sounds about right.
What is the condition of the tennis courts where Arthur Ashe began his tennis career? I used to live in Barton Heights and really admired those courts. Seeing people continuing in Ashe’s tradition, playing tennis in Battery Park, was awesome. If the City hasn’t rehabbed those courts by now, someone responsible should stand trail… for what? I dunno. Government negligence always seems to go unpunished.
Note the date on the story below [Jan. 21, 2005] and this quotation especially:
During Gaston, a sewer line running underneath the park cracked, and sewage damaged large sections of the park, including the tennis courts. Park officials will repair the tennis courts and the computers after they receive an insurance settlement. Tennis court repairs alone will cost $80,000, Everson said.
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NORTH SIDE CENTER REOPENED THE BATTERY PARK SITE HAD SUSTAINED DAMAGE FROM GASTON FLOODING
By Melanie Mayhew
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
Friday, January 21, 2005
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More than four months after flooding damaged Battery Park, the North Side park’s community center has reopened for visitors.
The Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities closed the community center in the wake of Tropical Storm Gaston’s remnants, which flooded Battery Park and caused more than $2 million in damages to 40 sites in the park system, said Christy Everson, marketing and public relations specialist for the department. Park officials quietly reopened the community center this month; they predicted that the surrounding park would open for the spring and summer months, Everson said.
“Gaston really hurt us,” she said. “It did a lot of extensive damage.”
During Gaston, floodwaters filled the basement of the community center, damaging all of the computers that officials had recently ordered for a new computer lab. Flooding also destroyed the center’s furnace, said Dinesh Tiwari, director of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities.
“The entire park was completely flooded by Gaston, and the community center was just one of the numerous park properties heavily damaged by the storm,” Tiwari said. We had to refurbish the furnace before we could reopen the center, and work is still being done on the park.”
During Gaston, a sewer line running underneath the park cracked, and sewage damaged large sections of the park, including the tennis courts. Park officials will repair the tennis courts and the computers after they receive an insurance settlement. Tennis court repairs alone will cost $80,000, Everson said.
The center will continue to offer youth athletic programs, arts and crafts, a book club and dance classes. The park’s swimming pool will open for the summer months, said Walter Brown, the center’s acting supervisor.
“The Battery Park Community Center traditionally has been a part of the neighborhood,” he said, “so it will be good to get back to serving our citizens there and meeting the community’s needs.”
Several sink holes opened up on the courts right around Overbrook. Currently the courts look like someone took a roto-tiller to the surfaces. While they filled in the sink holes the surfaces have been trashed since last fall.
The 30-40 feet of water was in 2006 (albeit several times). After they put in the huge pumps it only got up to 20 feet once – when the guy who had the ‘keys’ to start the pumps was out of town during a weekend storm.
The water was at the bottom of the basketball hoops in the ravine behind the Old Stone House. and nearly engufed the 3-story home owned by Dan and Beth White. Rats and mice were running around the streets.
The City has NOT done right for our neighborhod. They should be held accountable.
*engulfed
To my knowledge, it has never come out WHEN the City of Richmond first knew, or suspected, the ancient sewer pipe buried beneath the notorious Battery Park landfill was damaged.
Now I suspect it had been leaking, because it was cracked, for a long time. Way back in 1978, the Fan District Softball League played some of its scheduled games on a sloped softball field on that was then on top of the same landfill. I remember that whenever it rained heavily, right field was a swamp. It was a swamp that smelled bad. Very bad.
We were told it was because of the landfill. For softball players that explanation floated, because all we cared about was whether we could play on the field. Looking back on it, now I’m guessing we were smelling raw sewage leaking from the already cracked pipe that collapsed in 2006.
Landfill? How could there be a landfill there? The City of Richmond wouldn’t make children go to school on top of a landfill… unless, maybe they were black kids. Hmmmm… So many skeletons in this town’s closet.
That’s a fantastic theory. The pipe was busted as far back as 1978 and only gave way a mere 28 years later.
The landfill dates back to the 1960s. The City bought up land in the area and turned the stream valley into a dump. They even demolished some houses and tore up some streets to do it. The city fathers apparently thought it made sense, because Southern Barton Heights and Battery Park were being abandoned by the white middle class and “everybody knew” they were a lost cause.
I found a garden tiller on Craig’s list and plan to make a gift to a friend who has returned to the neighborhood. I would appreciate it if someone could tell me who owns the property on the corner of Brooklyn Park and Lamb ave.(What’s a Burger) It would make a beautiful community garden and save the owner the cost of mowing.
Presently living in Lynchburg, I saw the images of the Park underwater and it hurt my heart. I spent my childhood on the courts, at the pool, doing crafts with Phoebe, and looking at the fine tennis instructor(T.H.). I do hope that it will be fully restored.