The Longwood University Police Department (LUPD) responded to the Virginia Lot behind the landings around 8:15 a.m. Friday morning when water from Gross Branch creek, located next to the lot, flooded the area. According to a university press release concerning the incident, the owners of about 50 cars were contacted to come move their cars, and then urged to get in touch with their families as well as insurance companies.
An email was sent out by university officials Friday morning alerting students to move their vehicles as water was rising at a rapid pace.
While at the scene, the police also assessed which cars were safe to be moved by their owners and which cars were not. Cars that were deemed "unsafe" to move had to be towed out by a wrecker. More than half of the 50 cars in the parking lot had to be removed using the wrecker.
Some of these cars took on water as they were sitting right next to Gross Branch creek. How much water each individual car took on varied depending on how close each car was to the creek. Some cars, as bystanders could see from the fence line behind the Landings, were sitting in water up to the windshield.
LUPD Chief Bob Beach arrived at the scene around 10:30 a.m. along with Vice President of Facilities Management and Real Property Richard Bratcher and Vice President for Student Affairs Tim Pearson. Upon arriving, Beach informed the other officers, as well as other individuals standing by, that they had received five inches of rain since 5 a.m. that morning.
For the students that were able start their cars, despite complications with taking on water, they were allowed to park anywhere on campus for that day. Two students, whose cars were caught in the flood, wrote on The Rotunda Facebook page, commenting about what had happened to their cars. One student, senior Claire Williams was allowed to leave early from her class so she could rescue her car from the encroaching water. According to her post, she did not suffer the worst of the flood, and with some time, was able to get most of the water out of her car.
Another student's car took on a few inches as well, but she was also still able to start the vehicle. She was notified about the incident through a text message her friend had received about the lot.
According to the press release, Beach said, "It happened very, very quickly. Within about ten minutes, the parking lot was completely flooded."
While it is not a yearly occurrence, Friday was not the first time the lot has been covered in water. Beach said, "Since the five years I've been here, there has only been one other time this has happened. According to the town, however, before the Landings had existed, that creek would flood on a regular basis."
Junior Elizabeth Gass was one of the students affected by the flooding. She learned of the news from a phone call from her roommate's boyfriend around 9:30 a.m. "He got one of the emails saying that anyone in the Virginia Street Lot needed to move their cars, and my roommate had remembered that I was parked there, so she had him call me. "
Once Gass went outside about five minutes later, she said, "… my car was under about 2.5 feet of water."The water caused the electrical panel on Gass' car to short-circuit, causing the trunk to pop open, the lights to turn on and the windshield wipers to run. "When I got there, the police said they were glad I had identified the car because they were worried someone was trapped and trying to signal them."
Gass said her insurance claims adjuster should be arriving sometime this week to determine the extent of the damage. She is unsure of the exact scope of the damage, but her ignition insert was "cemented" in mud before it was towed by the wrecker. Gass was sure to show her appreciativeness of the police at the scene. "It was an awful situation, but they were really helpful an really supportive and made sure we all stayed safe."
Beach explained the lot does not belong to Longwood but is currently being leased to the university, so whether anything is done to the lot to prevent this occurrence again will not be up to Longwood. Instead, what Longwood does is prepare the Residential and Commuter Life staff to deal with these types of situations, as well as make students aware that the lot is subject to flooding where there is heavy rain. Signs currently line the first rows of the lot warning drivers the area is in a flood zone.
Beach also commented on how instead of notifying the whole school of the incident behind the Landings, the RCL staff and the police called every student with a car in the parking. "The communication to get in touch with students for this case was very intimate" said Beach. This way the whole campus was not worried about the flood if they did not need to be.
