Flash Flood — Danville (c), Virginia

2018-10-11 · near Danville, Danville (c), Virginia

Event narrative

Danville City was included in a Presidential Major Disaster declaration due mainly to the severe flooding associated with Tropical Storm Michael. Catastrophic flash flooding occurred across the City of Danville as extreme rains of 4 to 8 inches in several hours fell. Two people were killed in Danville after being were caught inside vehicles in the floodwaters and were pulled under rising waters as rescuers struggled to reach them. The first was 53-year old man that occurred at 500 PM local time in the 100 block of Colonial Court. The second occurred around 1020 PM on Goodyear Boulevard, as a 60-year old woman was trapped in her car in floodwaters and drowned. There were at least a dozen other high water rescues reported several of these along Riverside Drive where water was reported up to four feet deep. There was severe road and property damage across Danville with costs running into the millions of dollars. According to an early assessment from the Danville Fire Chief, five properties were completely destroyed, 19 sustained major damage, 55 received minor damage and 117 structures were affected.

Wider weather episode

Hurricane Michael made landfall along the Florida panhandle as major hurricane (Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale) on Wednesday afternoon, October 10th, 2018, then tracked northeastward with the northern portion of the storm circulation tracking across portions of Southside, Virginia Thursday afternoon, the 11th. A deep flow of tropical moisture into the Appalachians and central mid Atlantic region ahead of the storm began to generate excessive rainfall across portions of the region as early as Wednesday evening, mainly along the Interstate 77 corridor, causing some degree of flash flooding and otherwise saturating the ground even before the arrival of the rainfall directly associated with Michael.

As the storm circulation approached on Thursday, a cold front moving in from the west and interacted with the storm and enhanced rainfall especially east of Interstate 81. Widespread rainfall amounts of 4 to 8 inches were reported, along with local amounts over 10 inches, mainly from the mountains of North Carolina up through Southside Virginia. This resulted in significant flash flooding with flash flood emergencies issued for the city of Roanoke, as well as Roanoke County, and southern Pittsylvania county including the city of Danville. Unfortunately, there were five fatalities as vehicles were swept away by flash flood waters in Pittsylvania County, Danville, and Charlotte County, Virginia.

The massive volume of water also then generated rapid rises on rivers including the New, Roanoke, and Dan. Major flooding was reported at several river gage locations along with a couple of record crests. There were a few landslides reported as well, blocking roads and in one case destroying a shed.

In addition, as the northern portion of the storm circulation moved across the Piedmont, bands of heavier rains/convection developed and mixed strong winds down to the surface. Many trees were blown down in the water logged soil especially across Pittsylvania, Halifax and Charlotte counties of Virginia where rainfall was heaviest. Despite some initial reports of tornado sightings, damage surveys revealed no conclusive evidence of tornadic circulations and judged damage was caused by straight line winds.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.5958, -79.4870)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 790835. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.