Arnold “Buff” Chace Jr. was 7 years old when Hurricane Carol ravaged Rhode Island, with a storm surge that submerged downtown Providence in 12 feet of water and crippled the city even after the flood receded.
For many property and business owners too young to remember the 1954 hurricane, flooding is more of an abstract threat, not a priority amid the more-immediate demands of life. And the local, state and federal agencies have, so far, not told them they need to be worried.
But the flood risk is mounting.
A coalition of property owners, community groups, environmentalists and government officials known as the Providence Resilience Partnership is trying to sound warning bells about the looming threat to the capital city posed by rising water, a warming climate and even the less-obvious hazard of an archaic stormwater system.
The goal: mobilizing business and civic leaders to advocate for action on flood protection.
At stake is the state’s economic engine, a city where flood insurance covers about $163 million worth of properties, yet almost $3.8 billion worth would be exposed in a category 3 hurricane, according to data in a February report by the Providence Resilience Partnership.
“This is not just about a building getting water damage,” said Chace, founder and managing partner of Cornish Associates LP and also co-chairman of the Providence Resilience Partnership. “It’s about the organism or entity that is our capital city, our downtown. The state cannot lose its downtown to climate change.”
And it’s not just downtown. From the Port of Providence to Fox Point to Olneyville, block after block of city streets could be deluged. Add in vulnerable wastewater infrastructure and antiquated stormwater drains, and few areas of Providence are safe from floodwaters.
The warnings sounded by the resilience group have taken on increased importance with the change in the White House. Many believe President Joe Biden’s administration is poised to earmark funds for research and tools that could better gird cities such as Providence against rising tides. To get a slice of that money, business and civic leaders need to be unified, officials say.
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PARTIAL PICTURE: A map created by the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council’s Stormtools software shows potential flooding in Providence during a 100-year storm, assuming 2 feet of sea-level rise. The map doesn’t account for the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier, and it doesn’t represent other flood risks throughout the city. / COURTESY R.I. COASTAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT COUNCIL STORMTOOLS[/caption]
MIXED MODELING
First, leaders need to understand the problem.
The 127-page resilience report says the lack of a comprehensive model for Providence’s flood risk is “an impediment to data-driven investment and decisions.” It also means people likely underestimate how vulnerable the city is, the report stated.
Several flood models have been developed but their conclusions differ widely, diluting the sense of risk.
Take, for instance, Cornish Associates’ Nightingale Apartments on Mathewson Street, a six-story, 143-unit building that opened last year.
The maps developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency conclude the building, like most of downtown, faces a 0.2% risk of a 500-year flood and does not require flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program, in part because the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier is designed to protect downtown from storm surges.
Meanwhile, the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council has developed its own, nationally recognized flood risk modeling but with a limited purview that focuses on the state’s coastal areas. The CRMC’s Providence maps, which do not account for the hurricane barrier, predict a 100-year-flood would inundate the Nightingale in 7½ feet of water.
Meanwhile, a model developed by Isaac Ginis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography, anticipates a slow-moving hurricane with heavy rainfall would swamp most of downtown with 14-15 feet of water. Ginis’ model assumes the hurricane barrier wouldn’t close in a power outage likely to accompany a severe storm.
Chace has made sure his downtown properties have flood insurance coverage even though it’s not required. But many business owners aren’t aware of the risk and don’t seek coverage unless mandated by FEMA.
Among them is Mark Hellendrung, CEO of Narragansett Brewing Co., which will soon open a brewery and taproom in the city’s Fox Point section in May. The 18,000-square-foot building is just a few hundred feet from the Providence Harbor.
Yet Hellendrung was surprised to discover that it falls just outside FEMA’s designated special flood hazard area.
While the two-year, $6 million renovation project included environmental review and “a whole litany of stuff with the Narragansett Bay Commission” about stormwater, flood coverage wasn’t required, Hellendrung said. So he doesn’t have it.
He was unaware of CRMC’s models, which suggest that, with 2 feet of sea-level rise, parts of the property would be under more than 10 feet of water in a 100-year storm. But he also was not overly worried.
“It’s hard to manage your business on that kind of a ‘maybe’ of a 100-year flood,” Hellendrung said.
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CLOSE CALL: Lynn Corwin, a staff member at United Way of Rhode Island, stands on the bank of the Woonasquatucket River, which runs past the United Way headquarters in Providence. In 2010, the building narrowly escaped damage when the river, on the left, overflowed. Other nearby properties weren’t so lucky. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
INLAND ISSUES
Also impeding the public’s understanding of the risk is that most studies only look at coastal flooding from major bodies of water.
“If you get a quarter-mile away from a river channel, FEMA isn’t going to cover it,” said Jeremy Porter, head of research and development for New York-based nonprofit First Street Foundation, which has also created its own model for flood risk.
First Street’s analysis found that nearly 25,600 properties across Rhode Island faced some risk of flooding – 11% more than FEMA maps indicate. Providence ranked No. 1 for the city with the most properties at risk – 5,200.
The risk became reality in the spring of 2010 when extended rainfall had Rhode Island rivers overflowing their banks. While the Pawtuxet River farther south garnered the most attention because it closed Warwick Mall, the Woonasquatucket River in the Olneyville and Valley sections of Providence did its share of damage, too. Flooding inundated shopping plazas, mills and businesses, and it forced the evacuation of residents. Countless other businesses and property owners were left to deal with flooded basements.
FEMA did not respond to multiple inquiries from Providence Business News for comment. But Joseph Dwyer, risks and hazards planner for the R.I. Emergency Management Agency, said the FEMA models are not intended to predict future events – they’re meant for insurance purposes.
Still, FEMA has acknowledged the need for an update, with plans to release a new risk-rating and insurance program later this year. Exactly how that will change assessments of risk or insurance costs is unclear.
Meanwhile, the CRMC’s Metro Bay Special Area Management Plan covers floodplain redevelopment, environmental protections and recreational water uses for the 24 miles of shoreline and riverfront near urban parts of Narragansett Bay, including along the Woonasquatucket River in Providence, according to Jeffrey Willis, CRMC’s executive director. But its oversight, which by statute is limited to within 200 feet of a coastal feature such as a tidal river, does not cover the inland parts of the city.
And neither of these models addresses how river and flash flooding, caused by heavy rainfall and stormwater runoff, might impact Providence, yet the city faces a 67% chance of river flooding and a 42% chance of flash flooding through 2024, according to a 2019 Providence Emergency Management Agency report.
‘AN OLD CITY’
Other sources of inland flooding also pose major risks, including an antiquated stormwater system that can be overwhelmed by heavy rainfall.
H. Curtis Spalding, a professor at Brown University’s Institute at Brown for Environment and Society and co-chairman of the Providence Resilience Partnership, said the weaknesses of the stormwater system could be the most alarming threat to Providence. Yet it has gone largely unnoticed.
“That’s the biggest hole we saw,” he said of the findings from the resilience report. “We have an old city [that] is not built to handle this kind of future.”
Gumming up the process of upgrading the system are complications over who owns which pipes and who is responsible for them – both the city and the Narragansett Bay Commission own portions of the stormwater system.
The commission and the city have agreed to make improvements in a legal settlement with the R.I. Department of Environmental Management, but so far, those efforts have been largely confined to monitoring, maintenance and identifying illegal sewer connections, the Providence Resilience Partnership report said.
Just maintaining the system is “inadequate,” the report concluded.
Spalding said Providence needs a flood model that examines stormwater runoff to better understand weak points and develop priorities for improvements.
Pam Rubinoff, associate manager of coastal resilience at the URI Coastal Resources Center, acknowledged that inland flooding has not received the attention that coastal flooding has in recent years.
“The modeling available for coastal communities is just more advanced than what we have inland,” she said.
Still, city Planning Director Bonnie Nickerson said Mayor Jorge O. Elorza’s administration has made climate change a priority for several years.
“We’re thinking about how to bake in resiliency in every single project,” she said.
One example: the city’s efforts to overhaul an area around Kennedy Plaza. The original intent was to add lighting and safety features to a tunnel under Memorial Boulevard that leads to Waterplace Park. But earlier this year, the city and its consultant realized that was not an option, as the tunnel was already flooding during minor storms.
The plans were changed to include an elevated walkway, and the river walk around Waterplace Park would be raised 3 feet to account for future sea-level rise.
Those alterations are OK for a public project. But Nickerson said requiring private developers to take such measures would be difficult. “That’s really for FEMA and CRMC to determine,” she said.
MAKING THE CASE
Hellendrung was also wary of additional regulations, having waded through heaps of red tape around building codes, insulation and stormwater to renovate an empty warehouse into a beer-brewing and drinking destination. He said imposing flood requirements for developers would have a “massive impact” – and not, in his view, a good one.
Cliff Wood, executive director for The Providence Foundation, acknowledged that these ideas can be “problematic” for businesspeople. But much of that stems from a lack of awareness.
“Most people are aware of climate change, but they see it in abstract terms,” he said.
The Providence Resilience Partnership’s report, which the foundation helped pay for, turns it into something more concrete, which is key to getting business owners on board, Wood said.
Spalding shared his sentiment.
“Business owners understand that in order to be successful, you have to manage risk,” he said. “So when we put it that way, in terms of managing risk, it started to resonate.”
Also a key point of persuasion: developers and businesses looking to relocate or expand into Providence want to know their investments are protected against climate change. A city without a plan or an understanding of how bad flooding might get cannot compete, Spalding said.
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SURGE PROTECTOR: Mark Van Knoppen, center, co-founder of the Armory Revival Co., and employees Ed Barbehenn, left, and Wilson Rosario, install a flood gate at the company’s Rising Sun Mills mixed-use development in Providence to protect against potential floods. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
Mark Van Noppen, managing director of the Armory Revival Co., often has prospective tenants ask about flooding when eyeing office space in his company’s mixed-use Olneyville development, Rising Sun Mills LLC. Many are aware that a portion of the renovated mill complex was damaged during the 2010 floods. It wasn’t catastrophic but caused headaches for the 40 office tenants temporarily displaced while Armory Revival replaced drywall and made other repairs, Van Noppen said.
A quarter-mile down Valley Street, United Way of Rhode Island headquarters sits on the bank of the Woonasquatucket. Lynn Corwin, executive adviser for strategic initiatives, recalled frantically lifting boxes, filing cabinets and computers off the floor before the flood in 2010 as she watched the roiling river creep up to the exterior doors.
When she and her co-workers were evacuated that afternoon, they could barely drive out of Olneyville, which was covered in shallow water. When she returned three days later, she was amazed to find the building untouched.
The steep, 20-foot incline between the river and the building saved it, though United Way still conducts regular audits with its insurance company to assess flood risk, the nonprofit said.
ACT TOGETHER
Van Noppen wasn’t interested in risking that kind of flooding again, and he knew his tenants wouldn’t be, either.
Now when marketing the space, real estate brokers point out the rows of wide steel strips inlaid into the pavement around the building. If a major storm hits and the nearby Woonasquatucket starts to rise, they will play an important role in stopping the surge from entering the Rising Sun.
The 13 strips each connect to a custom-made, watertight flood gate. The 2-foot-tall steel structures take a few hours to construct, and the company holds regular training drills.
Van Noppen feels confident Rising Sun Mills now can hold back a flood. Mother Nature hasn’t yet tested it.
Most scientific models about flooding look out over a 30- or 50-year period, which might give the impression that there’s plenty of time to tackle the issue. But those leading the charge in Providence say the time is now.
Showing that the private, nonprofit and government representatives are aligned and organized on this issue is critical to winning what will surely be a competition for money the Biden administration is expected to make available, officials said.
“We need to get our act together, to be ready, so when the opportunity presents itself, we are ready,” Chace said.
Nancy Lavin is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Lavin@PBN.com.
