Stagner lived at the corner of Woodland Park and Woodridge Drive for 41 years until last Sept. 8, when Tropical Storm Hermine sent several feet of floodwaters raging through her neighborhood. Stagner remembers worrying that she and her son and daughter would have to retreat to the attic for safety after the swiftly rising creek burst through her windows and began filling her home chest-deep with muddy brown water.
It will be Stagner's turn to be comforted this month when the wrecking crew comes for her former home. The city bought it and 48 other flood-damaged houses and The Willows at Shady Valley condominiums this year as part of a $16 million program to address chronic flooding along Rush Creek.
City officials have repeatedly said that no amount of dredging will stop the creek from flooding and that tearing down the homes and apartments to create green space to absorb storm-water runoff is the only practical solution.
"I feel very strongly there is nothing we can do to hold that back," Mayor Robert Cluck said. "We have to get people out of harm's way. We have accomplished that to a large extent."
So far, 17 homes have been razed, and 16 others are scheduled to be demolished by early October, city officials said. The 100-unit Willows condos, which the city bought for $4.5 million, are set to be torn down by the end of the year.
Once cleared, the land will be regraded, reseeded and maintained by the city. The new green space will be incorporated into existing parks.
The city issued bonds to pay for the flood-control project, which will be repaid over 20 years using storm-water fees paid by water utility customers.
"It's a very efficient way to make this whole thing work," Cluck said. "Had we not had that, I'm not sure where we would have gotten the money to do it."
"We lost everything but essentially the clothes off our backs," said Lowe, whose family spent three months living in a hotel before buying a new home in south Arlington. "It was very easy to sell [to the city]. We would not have gone through this again for anything."
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