PHILLIPS: Everywhere you look, you see little lakes, ponds.

There's water everywhere.

BOUCHARD: That water is the economic lifeblood of this region.

That's why the port is here.

That's why the military is here.

It serves the world's largest naval base, and the flooding is impacting all the bases in Hampton Roads.

PHILLIPS: It's not possible to wall off all that water, there's just too much.

BOUCHARD: The Chesapeake Bay, the rivers, all the inlets, they surround and penetrate all of the cities.

GRIFFITH: Before the Navy came in this was just a bunch of marshland.

They built the bases.

They built housing for the bases.

They built the shops for the houses, and that's what created Hampton Roads.

HILL: Hampton Roads, it's a center of gravity for the United States as a port, as a national security center.

VANDERLEY: We have to have sailors that are ready to go to fight our nation's battles and that training is done here.

And the ability for them to go home and see their families is part of what makes them capable of going out and fighting our nation's wars when called upon.

If this installation isn't ready to support our warfighting platforms, then those warfighting platforms are less capable when they do go out and fight.

MCCLELLAN: When our sailors and their families are negatively affected by the floods, it puts our national security at risk.

Flooding is happening more frequently, it's happening on sunny days.

I cannot drive on the road that's adjacent to my house 20-30% of the month.

We can't, as a city, afford that ourselves.

We need support from the region, we need support from the state, we need support from the nation.

PHILLIPS: There's 80 years til the turn of the century.

We have the ground sinking and waters rising.

This entire landscape will be different then.

And how different it is and what it looks like is up to us to determine, but if we don't start acting now it will get ahead of us and it will become much more costly, much more difficult and we will not have the ability to make as many decisions for our future as we do right now.

SLATES: With over 80 ships in Norfolk and 30-plus squadrons and 10-plus submarines, it's our largest naval base, naval concentration area, if you would, in the world right there in the greater Hampton Roads area.

And we're not going anywhere.

We along with the community have to figure out how we can address this challenge.

PHILLIPS: The Hampton Roads region has been in use by military and merchant mariners since pre-Revolutionary War times.

There's always been a presence here because of its proximity to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

PHILLIPS: The region is 17 different cities and municipalities that stretch from the peninsula, Williamsburg, south to the far eastern corner of Tidewater, Virgin.

PHILLIPS: There are federal facilities scattered throughout the seventeen cities and municipalities.

A substantial number of them are military.

So there are things here that can't go anywhere else.

LEWIS: This area was almost an island, served by ferries and boats until they began to build bridge tunnels.

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LEWIS: This is the Ghent section of Norfolk.

We're really in one of the Ground Zero places for sea level rise in this area.

This church was built between 1909 and 1910.

It has a basement where we do have some facilities but we are in the process of abandoning those because of ongoing water intrusion.

So there's been many a Sunday morning where I've had to send out to the parish, photographs of where the flooding is and guidance for people where they might park so that they don't get caught in the flooding.

SLATES: If you look at the Navy family, the Navy family, most of it lives in those communities.

Whether they own a house, whether they rent a house.

That sailor is also a Sunday school teacher.

That sailor is also a little league coach.

We count on the community.

The community provides us with utilities: electrical power, water, sewage, the transportation infrastructure that we need.

Pretty difficult to get the people onto the base if they're driving down roads that have standing water on them.

It obviously does have an impact on our ability to project power because we need to be able to deploy those forces when directed to deploy those forces.

But the water that we get from the community or the electrical power we get from the community isn't any good if the pumps are under water or the substation is under water.

BOUCHARD: Clearly sea level rise is happening.

The U.S.

military, they see the problem.

They're doing very thorough assessments of all their bases and developing plans to protect those bases.

And they expect the communities around those bases to do the same thing.

The naysayers, by trying to pretend that this is not a problem and is not worthy of funding to adapt to sea level rise, they are jeopardizing U.S.

national security and they are jeopardizing the U.S.

economy.

HILL: This is a risk management issue.

Think of the insurance company, or the reinsurers, they are deeply, the reinsurers particularly, concerned about the dangers to our environment because their payouts are going to increase as these changes continue to occur.

PHILLIPS: The challenge for the Navy and for the federal entities here is, what's our plan?

And how do we collaborate with the regional area, with the communities to develop that plan that will support a resiliency and adaptive strategy, that will allow this region to continue to operate.

SLATES: The only way to solve a challenge like sea level rise is through a whole of government approach.

Federal government, state government, local government all working together on a common problem, trying to find a common solution that they can all support, and then all commit resources.

I don't think we as a nation, have worked on a challenge that really requires all of these different federal, state agencies, and local government organizations to work together.

And you also have to bring in the private sector.

So how do you organize to be able to do that?

Who are the deciders?

This is not an easy challenge to overcome, but it's also a challenge that we have to overcome.

MCCLELLAN: Having seventeen different legislative bodies is difficult from the standpoint of getting compromise on a specific issue.

One of the things I hear regularly from my constituents is why aren't we doing more?

...and if it's overnight we won't know it's happening.

And that's scary.

We are also looking at an ordinance or legislation about when the roads are flooded, creating 'No Wake Zones".

Certainly, we're all frustrated that there's no fix tomorrow, because we live in a society where we want things to happen quickly, and these fixes are going to take years, possibly decades.

We're working to do as much as we can, and we need to continue working with our state and federal legislators.

Getting support at those higher levels, requires good regional cooperation, and until we have that, we're not able to make the changes that are necessary.

PHILLIPS: We are headed to the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission meeting to see what's on their agenda for the rest of the year.

My interest in attending stems from some of the work that I've done locally on sea level rise, resiliency planning, and adaptation planning, and of course the Planning District Commission plays a huge role in how that will take place regionally.

This is Llewellyn avenue.

You can see from the flooding marker over here it's a routine flooder -- this is strictly high tide flooding.

The tide is high in about 45 minutes here, so in 45 minutes I won't be able to get through here.

That's life here.

CRUM: ...remain a very high regional priority.

So, Madam Chair, I'll conclude my comments by certainly responding to any questions in terms of a recommended action.

MCCLELLAN: Yes.

Given the fact with what we just experienced recently with regards to flooding, I'm surprised that's not in this agenda.

Would it be somewhere else?

CRUM: So we could add something if that's the direction the Commission would like to go.

What we would need to determine would be what the specific ask would be.

MCCLELLAN: May I recommend that we possibly look at funding for the revolving fund to help homeowners with mitigation of flood damages?

It is a revolving fund that has no money in it.

So it is a shell with nothing in it.

It is another unfunded mandate, and it seems to me that would be something that is a very distinct and actionable item.

CHUM: Thank you.

MEETING CHAIR: We'll just take that recommendation into consideration.

Our next speaker is Ms.

Karen Speights.

Good morning.

SPEIGHTS: Good morning, committee members and all those in attendance.

Thank you for allowing me a time to speak.

I am here as a resident of the City of Norfolk.

I live in Chesterfield Heights.

My concern is flooding.

I'm a caregiver, so one of my problems is getting home to take care of my mother.

We can get trapped in.

And where I live when it floods, I can't leave my house.

During a really bad event, we were in our house for three days and couldn't leave.

ARCHIVAL NEWS: Periods of rain off and on today... half-inch of rain... Evacuation orders are in place for some, while others are hunkering down for whatever this storm delivers.

SPEIGHTS: If we are having this problem throughout, not just Norfolk, but the other surrounding cities and places are flooding that never flooded before.

How will they respond to all of this and where will we go?

I went and bought a life vest for my mom because I was frightened for her safety.

And once that water comes in, then how do you get out?

I know I can get out, but how do I get her out?

SPEIGHTS: Hey momma, I got something for you.

This is just in case, you know, in an emergency if we need to get out, or if you get sick or something.

So I bought you a life jacket.

MOMMA: Me, in a life jacket?

SPEIGHTS: Yeah, I bought you a life jacket so you can put it on, and you can see, you just put your arms in it like that.

And just in case we have to go out there in that water and get to safety so we'll be ok.

MOMMA: Well, thank you.

SPEIGHTS: You're welcome.

MOMMA: You're so nice.

You do stuff like this all the time.

Very nice.

SPEIGHTS: Thank you.

MOMMA: I hadn't thought about that.

SPEIGHTS: So, you having a good day?

MOMMA: Kinda slow, but good.

LEWIS: [delivering sermon] I wish you could've been with us last Sunday morning as the waters rose outside.

You know, once again our basements and our homes were flooded, and yet 35 of us gathered in the choir section of the church to celebrate communion and sing hymns.

And yet that's the marvelous thing.

We're here facing these huge challenges of sea level rise, and yet we don't despair, we come together.

LEWIS: I have talked about it as a moral issue.

The people who are most impacted are the poor, are people who don't have the money to make the necessary structural changes where they live.

And so many of the people who are struggling economically are the first ones to deal with the flooding and be displaced from their homes and so I think we have a moral obligation as a church.

THOMPSON: Our Civic League is having an oyster roast.

We do it every fall and the neighbors all come and we eat drink and be merry.

Today we have one of our neighbors, who is a zoning official with the City of Norfolk, to tell us about the new flood zone maps that have just been released, because every five years the federal government changes the flood zones and that will affect your property and when you need flood insurance or don't.

NEWCOMB: If you have a federally-insured mortgage and you live in a flood zone, you do have flood insurance.

If water comes in your house during a storm and it comes in the front door, that has to be handled by flood insurance.

Your homeowner's insurance will not cover that at all.

THOMPSON: I've lived here in this house since 1979.

Water comes up underneath from the ground up it seeps under the walls not just over the wall.

It goes over the wall when we have nor'easters and hurricanes but we just have a lot of water that used to not come up this high.

We have five sump pumps for this house alone.

Some people don't want to admit that there's a problem.

The water is the water, and if it comes up, it comes up.

It doesn't matter what your politics are.

It still comes in my yard and my basement.

SLATES: I retired from the Navy recently and moved back down here to Norfolk, which, you know, I had this house when I was up in D.C., but lived in D.C.

while I was working in the Pentag.

Yeah, chicken works, but I'll tell you, this works better than chicken for me.

As an engineer, what I go by is facts, so down here in the Norfolk area the facts are that the sea level is rising.

The facts are that the land is subsiding.

So it's the double whammy.

You know, water's coming up and the land's going down.

But you know I think that most of the people around here are not looking for a miracle.

They understand that we live in a low-lying area.

What they are looking for is, what can be done to make us maybe a little more resilient?

HILL: We are a nation of innovators, we are a nation of doers.

We are a nation that has been highly successful in protecting its security and its way of life.

And so in order to continue to have a nation that thrives, we need to look at the risks at the front end, see what steps we can take now to reduce the damage on the back end.

Whether it's terrorists, cyber, pandemic, nuclear, or the threats to the environment.

SLATES: Patriotic to me means, putting country above self.

But patriotic doesn't mean I always get what I want, patriotic means what's the right thing for our country.

How do we work together to achieve those right things for our country?

I really believe that you need to be in public service whether it's politics whether it's the military, for something bigger than yourself, and that thing bigger than yourself is where you need to take some risk.

And my frustration when I see votes along partisan lines or something like that, that kind of infuriates me.

You know, vote your heart, vote your conscience, what's good for the country -- not what's good for my party.

PHILLIPS: It's not going to come without pain.

It's hard.

Collaboration is very hard and difficult.

But if this region can figure out a way to collaboratively set standards, and plan towards those standards, and adapt, then not only can they share with other regions how they do it, but they can share with regions around the world, really, how to take a very complex set of entities that all have to fit together in a puzzle and move forward together collectively.

That's a real opportunity for this region, but not if it waits to get started.

BOUCHARD: We're not powerless.

We are going to have to be selective about what we choose to protect and what we can't protect, because of geography or geology, or whatever.

BOUCHARD: We have the technology, we have the knowledge to protect what is critically important to our country.

The cost of doing nothing is much greater than the cost of doing something.

MCGINN: How can we be an exporter of good ideas and good technologies to the rest of the world, who are facing similar challenges caused by sea level rise?

It's a challenge to our mission, it's a challenge to our way of life.

So let's do something about it.

Because we are pragmatic.

How do you make yourself part of the solution and not simply be a victim?

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