KEYRIS MANZANARES This is the aftermath of Hurricane Camille in Nelson County.

Camille is one of only four category five hurricanes to ever make landfall in the United States.

JEREMY HOFFMAN: You have rainfall falling, an intense amount of rainfall falling on very steep topography.

So it's already going to be running off very quickly, happening overnight so everybody was taken by surprise.

And unfortunately, over the course of the whole storm, I think it's over 120 people wound up losing their lives in Virginia alone.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: On August 19th, 1969, Hurricane Camille dropped 30 inches of rain.

Virginians were unprepared for the destruction.

Forecasters had no idea it was coming.

And Virginians went to bed thinking that the hurricane that had destroyed southern states had died down to nothing.

They were wrong.

JEREMY HOFFMAN: We actually don't know the top sustained wind speeds from Hurricane Camille, simply because it destroyed all of the wind recording equipment in the landfall area.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Dr. Jeremy Hoffman, the David and Jane Cohn Scientist at the Science Museum of Virginia says, "Hurricane Camille was the first time that the United States recognized that it wasn't just coastal communities impacted by hurricanes."

JEREMY HOFFMAN: Everyone in Virginia that I know that's lived here their whole lives, know a few names by heart.

You know?

"Agnes, Juan, Camille, Gaston."

Some of those are just seared into the collective, cultural memory of Virginia because of their devastating impacts.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Hurricane Camille was thought to be a once-in-a-century storm, but then came Hurricane Agnes, which caused record flooding of the James River.

Both hurricanes, Camille and Agnes, left an everlasting mark on Virginia communities.

JEREMY HOFFMAN: In historical discussions of flooding, we tend to focus on hurricanes, but now the story is more, in recent memory, it's these really intense, short, nontropical storms causing this same level, well maybe not the exact same level, but certainly a comparable level of devastation in communities around Virginia.

GOLDIE LOONEY: Actually, I had a cousin that was missing.

And she, her house, her car actually had gotten mud-slided.

And the family was worried, didn't know where she was at, but we found out she had went to a neighbor's house.

So she was found good.

But there's other people that were gone missing, that it took days to find.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: On July 12th, 2022, flash flooding in Buchanan County washed away houses and damaged more than a hundred homes.

On top of this destruction, 44 people went missing, swept away by floodwaters and mudslides.

Surrounding areas also felt the impact, but additional help arrived when Virginia Governor, Glenn Youngkin, declared a state of emergency.

KATIE CARTER: All disasters are going to have the first responders from that specific locality respond to that disaster.

And then when the state steps in, that's really when those localities have identified the need that they say, "Hey, we've exceeded our capabilities and what we can offer to this disaster.

We need state help."

KEYRIS MANZANARES: As rescue teams from across Southwest and Central Virginia pitched in, they were able to make contact with all of the missing people and bring them to safety.

Emergency efforts continued, helping those who had lost everything.

GOLDIE LOONEY: And it's still, they're not cleaned up there.

Their houses are gone, their homes are lost, their things.

And you wonder, if that's you, what would you do?

And every flood comes in and you got that fear left.

KEYRIS MANAZANARES: Goldie Looney says, flash flooding has caused significant damage to her home and she's lost irreplaceable items.

GOLDIE LOONEY: It's an everyday thing.

When it floods in our basement we had to replace it, hot water tank.

We've had a pond that I've had for over years; it's gone.

And my car; it's gone.

It's just not there no more.

And you just, you fear you have to get your car out before it gets to your driveway or you don't have a car.

You have no way out, then.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: On what they call, their "blue-sky" days, VDEM is focused on helping Virginians stay alert, aware, and prepared so they know what to do when heavy rain falls.

KATIE CARTER: First and foremost, know the forecast of what's coming and the impacts of that forecast.

You may hear one inch of rain, two inches of rain, but how does that translate?

What does that mean to me?

And sometimes you might have the ability to, one inch of rain means nothing, but maybe that one inch of rain falls over the course of 30 minutes, really fast, and over an area with poor drainage.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: What Looney and her neighbors endured is an example of sudden, catastrophic flooding, but more Virginia cities are dealing with flash flooding of varied intensity, as storms become more frequent and more powerful.

Experts tell us, "Flash flooding is the most dramatic and the deadliest."

JEREMY HOFFMAN: So this is usually confined to a pretty small area getting an intense amount of precipitation in a very short amount of time.

And that can be a place like a city street or a canyon in a mountain.

And so, those surfaces can't absorb that water fast enough.

KEYRIS MANAZANARES: In Old Town Alexandria, the Potomac River is rising more frequently.

DAN MEDINA: If we were standing here during what is called a "king tide," which is one of those extreme events in the year, we'll probably be pretty much underwater in this spot right here.

And the water would go as far up on the street probably, maybe the next block over, halfway.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: Dan Medina is the Storm Water Project Manager of Alexandria.

He says, "With nothing to block the water, it's getting into the drainage system and flooding the streets, creating a chronic problem."

DAN MEDINA: Streets are affected, of course.

Houses are affected, of course.

Water makes it into people's basements and whatever is there essentially useless.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: The city is considering a variety of solutions, from barriers to upgrades to their drainage system, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars.

The Hampton Roads area has endured a similar street flooding issue, but southeastern coastal communities are also dealing with the challenges of sea level rise.

Climate experts say, part of the problem is the land is also sinking.

At Old Dominion University in Norfolk, researchers are building a digital twin of Hampton Roads, using Geographical Information Systems, or GIS, which is a digital version of maps.

Professor Tom Allen says, the digital twin is like having a time machine.

TOM ALLEN: So in our digital twin we can simulate flooding in the future, assess the impacts and redesign to reduce the effects or the hazards, the economic costs for example, of those.

So it's a way of using it to look into the future.

Then we're going to develop a prototype.

Think of it as a demonstration, and that will be tackling very common issues.

A flood event... How does emergency response prepare and respond to a flood event?

Well, we would rather train and simulate that than wait and see and do our experiments in real time.

KEYRIS MANZANARES: The digital twin is for the benefit of Hampton Roads and for localities across Virginia who know too well what flooding can do.

GOLDIE LOONEY: At this time, there's so many floods.

I just, no, I just want it to stop.

Just let 'em go.

It just, I'm tired of losing so much.