Photo courtesy of DrainALX
After two floods caused major damage in her home, Katie Waynick is on a mission to help homeowners understand and take action around flooding in Alexandria.
Waynick has lived with her husband in their 1940’s townhome in Del Ray for more than four years. Knowing that the area is prone to water table issues they regularly checked flood maps while house hunting to make sure they were staying well outside of the bounds. Yet despite the time and effort, they experienced their first flood after a massive storm in July 2019. Then, in July 2020, their newly installed backflow preventer failed, allowing sewage to flood their home nearly 12 months to the day of the previous event.
Over the past two years, they have spent over $50,000 on flood repair, mitigation, and prevention, including the installation and repair of a backflow preventer, full interior French drain, enlarged sump pump, and a new sewer line. After their flood experiences, they chose finishes in the basement that could better withstand water without having to be completely replaced, including porcelain tile and PVC baseboards.
“It was after all that work and the 2020 storm that I recognized this was not something we as homeowners could solve on our own and started digging in. It didn’t take long to realize that the scope is much more vast than one street or neighborhood, but is spread throughout the City and has been known for some time,” she said.
Now, Waynick is sharing what she has learned through an email list and a website called DrainALX.
After Waynick’s first flood experience, she started talking to neighbors on her own street, letting them know that they should submit information through Alexandria 311, sign up for City alerts and more — and her communication efforts kept growing from there. Her email list now has more than 250 people across at least a dozen neighborhoods from the West End to North East Alexandria and Old Town.
She launched the DrainALX website in late 2020 to help her neighbors — and all Alexandria residents dealing with flooding — better understand the issue, share their experiences, and get involved. It includes historic information, links to news stories and City documents, advice on filing a claim with the City and stories and photos from residents.
“I found that there is a lot of information out there but no single place for it,” she said. “The site isn’t perfect but was my way of aggregating information for those who could benefit from it,” she said. Moving forward, she hopes it will help get residents up to speed faster on this critical infrastructure and safety issue.
“It’s not all infrastructure, it’s not all climate change, but it’s a perfect storm of all of them,” she said. This is becoming increasingly apparent in the older neighborhoods across Alexandria whose infrastructure predates current standards.
Compounding the problem, Waynick believes, is how there is no perfect solution that can be replicated across properties.
“No two homes or lots are the same, so it is vital that residents understand what is happening to their home and their lot during these events. You can’t rely on your neighbors’ experience when confronting the damage to your home. In her own neighborhood, some residents are affected by surface level flooding, others have had sewage backups, some have unfortunately experienced both.
“The level of damage city-wide is staggering,” Waynick said. “There are countless stories of destroyed basements and main level living spaces that need full gut jobs. Residents have had to move out of their homes for months. Others have lost in-home offices or cars and some have come perilously close to being electrocuted. It is not a stretch to say that this has hit a crisis level for many Alexandrians who live in fear every day there is rain in the forecast.”
She went on to tell of one family whose one-story house becomes a literal island as the water rises. They have no second floor to escape to and have had to make contingency plans, complete with raft and lifejackets, on how to maneuver out with their pets in tow.
Across town, another family she has worked with lost a car, their basement, and even their homeowners’ insurance, after their second sewage backup claim to insurance in as many years. “Their story has been one of the most compelling because any of these events alone would be difficult to manage but they see those events as the tip of the iceberg,” Waynick said. Shortly after the July 2020 event left knee-deep sewage in their home, the homeowners’ 3-month-old child developed a fever before testing positive for COVID-19. The family feels certain that exposure to COVID-19 was from either the sewage in their home or from a member of the mitigation crew dispatched to clean it. While the baby never needed to be hospitalized, she did have fevers for over two months. Just a few months later, the September 10 rainstorms brought additional destruction, and they were forced to once again wade in sewage, this time trying to save the stores of breastmilk the mother had saved in time for her return to work.
Drawing from those she has met through these efforts, Waynick has also helped pull together Zoom calls and meetings between residents, reporters, and officials.
“It has been a group effort, but I’m really proud to have played a small role in bringing together residents from across the City to speak with officials, from members of the Alexandria City Council all the way up to representatives at the state and federal levels, including Delegate Mark Levine and Congressman Don Beyer.”
Most recently she worked with a handful of other residents to offer suggestions to City Council members on ways to enhance the recent stormwater proposal.
“Many of us didn’t object to the doubling of the fee, we simply felt the proposal could be stronger in terms of where the funds are spent, project prioritization, and timelines.” She says that members of Council were open and willing to talk through their ideas and credits Councilwoman Amy Jackson and Councilman John Chapman for being especially instrumental in helping create the Ad Hoc Flood Mitigation Advisory Group. “We felt strongly that residents should have more of a voice in this process and this establishes that foundation. The time that Councilwoman Jackson spent discussing this and that Councilman Chapman put into helping us draft this language can’t be overstated.”
“I’ve always felt like engaging with local government as a resident is not only our right but also our responsibility,” Waynick said. She has tried not to call out local officials for failures, but is focused on providing information so residents can make their own decisions about how to engage.
“I would like to think that respectful and meaningful dialogue between residents and officials can have more of an impact moving forward.” When asked what is next, she points to the Ad Hoc Advisory Group and her hope at being voted by Council to one of the ten positions. “For me, this has always been about fixing the pipes so that we can feel safe in our homes. That hasn’t changed, I just see that need as being about more than just my small corner of the neighborhood.”
By day, Waynick is a marketing and communications professional. “I never imagined my personal and professional lives colliding like this but if the work I’ve done can help others navigate this situation, I’m happy to have the knowledge and skills to share it.”
When asked what advice she would give to residents, Waynick strongly encourages them to first diagnose what they are seeing on their own property so that professionals can help create a personalized solution.
“We are ultimately talking about two complex systems, both on the stormwater and sanitary sewer side. Knowing what threat your property faces and how that connects to those larger systems is vital in determining what will and won’t work for you. For instance, someone living in Del Ray will require different solutions from someone living in Old Town where some sanitary and storm lines are still combined. And those solutions will look very different from those residents whose homes are threatened by open culverts that flood in heavy rain events.”
She believes it is important to know what equipment your home has and how it works. If you have a backflow preventer, is it manual or automatic? When was the last time it was serviced? If you have a sump pump, does it have a battery backup? If not, do you have the tools and knowledge on how to empty it in the event you lose power?
Equally important is to know what type of coverage you carry in terms of insurance. Most homeowners’ policies don’t cover water or sewer damage without separate riders that you must request. FEMA flood insurance policies have limits both in terms of what is covered as well as amounts of coverage. These details are important to know and understand. Finally, she points to resources provided by the City and others, like the Alexandria City Sewer Viewer map or recent FEMA mapping updates, as important tools to better understand what is happening on a larger scale.
