Richmond, VCU escape Sandy unscathed

Liz Butterfield
Assistant News Editor

From Sunday night to early Tuesday morning, the Richmond community held its breath as Hurricane Sandy swept northward and did little of the anticipated damage to the downtown area. Governor Bob McDonnell issued a state of emergency Friday, and Richmonders stocked up early on water and nonperishable foods. Sandy’s heavy winds and rain did not have the anticipated effect on central Virginia, however, and hit northern states like New Jersey and New York hardest.

Vickie Connors, a meteorologist and assistant professor at VCU’s Center for Environmental Studies, said Sandy did not affect Richmond as expected.

“We didn’t have a lot of the physical damage from winds that I think people were concerned about,” Connors said. She noted that before the storm, high winds and heavy rain were expected in Richmond and the city was lucky to have avoided worse conditions.

“The impacts for Richmond were fairly modest … Knowing what could have been and what we got, this was pretty benign,” Connors said. The storm was responsible for two traffic related fatalities in central Virginia.

In a VCU alert sent early Monday evening, the university decided to open at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 30. The alert said that based on the expected impact of Hurricane Sandy on central Virginia and VCU, the university would open and the VCU Health System and its clinics would operate on a normal schedule.

“The safety of all of the VCU community is of utmost importance,” the message said. “Please use discretion and prudence in decisions to travel to campus as conditions may vary within the region.”

Jason Magill is a VCU history major and a commuter. Despite the minimal damage, he still felt that VCU should have closed on Tuesday.

“I do not think that they took into account those that do commute,” he said, although he believed VCU did what was in the university’s best interest.

Magill, also a father of two, felt that having the university open while all surrounding public schools closed puts stress on parents who work or take classes at the university.

“It opens up a whole different can of worms,” he said.

Magill said he expected downed trees and power lines, but did not know anyone who lost power during the storm. Dominion Virginia Power’s Tom Jewell said that over the course of the storm, a total of 10,000 Richmond area customers lost power at some point, but that as of Tuesday night, almost all had been restored.

John Bernier, adjunct meteorology professor at VCU and chief meteorologist for WRIC TV 8 in Richmond, said that what made Sandy different from other hurricanes was its merger with a major winter storm headed east. The storm was unable to move back out through the east coast due to a fair-weather storm over Greenland, he explained.

“The worst part of the storm didn’t … get far enough inland to affect us here,” Bernier said.

During the storm, Richmond only received 2.20 inches of rain, according to Bill Sammler, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. Winds only reached 40 mph during the storm’s peak. In contrast, during Hurricane Irene, maximum wind speeds were over 70 mph and rainfall totaled 5.37 inches.

Mayor Dwight C. Jones ended his State of Emergency declaration at 7:46 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 30, and closed the Emergency Operations Center at noon on Tuesday. Emergency shelters at Linwood Holton and Blackwell elementary schools closed at noon and libraries and community centers reopened at noon, said a statement issued from the mayor’s press secretary.

“Our city received no significant damage of note, and is resuming normal operations,” Jones said in the statement. “I would like to extend our deepest thoughts and concerns to our neighbors to the north who were significantly impacted by this weather event.”

During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Bob McDonnell said that the commonwealth saw minimal damage.

“Sandy was not as bad as we expected,” McDonnell said. “But we still faced high winds, heavy rain and snow and flooding. Virginians worked together to get through this storm, and looked out for one another.”