As the Hampton Roads area recovers from one of the worst flooding and wave damage episodes in decades, the boyfriend and I are among the many now faced with repairs to our home. Since the cost of raising the boyfriend's house is prohibitive, we will have the repairs done in a manner that will make the house as waterproof as possible: ceramic title throughout the entire first floor; water resistant sheet rock extending 4 feet up from the floor, sealant under the paint and possibly wider base boards to extend up higher than what we currently have. Given the French design of the house, I think we can reachieve the understated elegance that the boyfriend had created before the flooding of last week. The demolition and repair work, however, will be less than a pleasant experience and we will need to move EVERYTHING out of the first floor and will likely need to get a temporary storage unit since we simply have nowhere upstairs to put everything. Meanwhile, we still need to replace the floor in the styling area of the boyfriend's salon - Thanksgiving break will NOT be relaxing.*
The other big casualty of the storm are the beaches along Chesapeake Bay extending from Willoughby Spit in Norfolk all the way to Cape Henry in Virginia Beach. My friend Cindy Cutler who was the EV Legends honoree saw the sand dune between her backyard and the Bay disappear - along with half of her yard. As the photo above reveals, the beach erosion was near catastrophic in places and one local restaurant near the Chesapeake Bay in my parents old neighbor hood suffered severe damage and lost more than 3/4 of its parking lot. Major winter storms this winter will now pose much greater hazards to beach front properties than would otherwise be the case. Any effort at sand replenishment obviously would be months and years away.
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