But a number of businesses and residents have opted not to come back.įlood mitigation projects planned after the 2016 storm were still mostly on the drawing board when last year’s flood hit. The county has repaired the damage to public infrastructure, including one road closed for months after it washed out. The 2018 flood killed one person and washed out many of the same businesses and residents. But the community cleaned up, repaired and returned. The first flood claimed two lives, damaged 90 businesses, displaced nearly 100 residents and put hundreds out of work. In the past, flooding came from the Patapsco rising out of its banks, but the two most recent floods were “top-down,” meaning that rain falling in the 11-square mile Tiber-Hudson watershed burst from the channels of the streams that would normally carry it to the larger river. Over the years, Main Street has been inundated dozens of times, but there have been three major floods in the last seven years, including Tropical Storm Lee in 2011. Some of the buildings actually sit atop culverted stream channels. It was built in a steep, rocky valley where four streams come together before flowing into the Patapsco River. However, extreme rainfall events have become much more frequent across the Northeast since the 1950s, a trend scientists say is likely to keep happening as the global climate continues to change in the coming decades.Įllicott City has been flood-prone since its founding as a grain mill community in 1772. The floods that devastated old Ellicott City on July 30, 2016, and on May 27, 2018, were generated by “1,000-year storms,” with rains so intense that meteorologists consider them exceptionally rare and put the probability of their occurring in any year at 1 in 1,000. “When you look at the reality of it, there are some buildings that just have to come down in order to ensure the highest level of public safety possible,” Ball said in an interview. Howard County Executive Calvin Ball unveiled a flood mitigation plan in May that aims to keep Ellicott City “safe and sound.” It proposes boring a tunnel to siphon floodwaters away from the quaint shops and restaurants lining Main Street and building or expanding stormwater retention ponds and culverts farther up the watershed.īall’s plan would also demolish four of the historic buildings on lower Main and modify up to six more. Howard EcoWorks Executive Director Lori Lilly, during a tour of Ellicott City’s historic downtown in May.

Ellicott city flood 2016