VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WVEC) -- A community is coming together to remember the devastation mother nature can bring. This weekend marks a year since Hurricane Matthew flooded Hampton Roads.
The Windsor Woods neighborhood in Virginia Beach was one of the hardest hit areas.
The Wasserburg family lives there off of Old Forge Road, and they're still processing everything that happened that weekend.
“We sat around a different table in this very room with just us and our kids… and you know basically all hell broke loose for us,” said Virginia Wasserberg.
For other neighbors the memories of the storm are just as strong.
“The water, I mean it was so much you know you didn’t see something like that coming into your house,” said Roberta Mayhuff, who said Matthew flooded her house with more than 13 inches of water.
“Thinking crap what are we going to do?,” said Mary Beth Wadey, who is a hurricane survivor as well.
Some neighbors say they had more than 19 inches of water flood their homes when the storm drains couldn’t handle the flooding water.
“I’m hoping the city had a plan for that,” said neighborhood resident Edward Wadey. “I kind of think that had that been maintained on a regular basis, you know maybe we would’ve flooded but maybe we wouldn’t have flooded as bad,” said Virginia.
Some are still unable to live in their houses. Others, Virginia said, are still working to get their insurance form their mortgage companies to cover the damage.
“It’s a vicious circle because not everybody can afford to take out an eighty or ninety thousand-dollar loan,” said Virginia.
Storage containers, holding damaged household items still line the street, but the Wasserberg family said this story had a silver lining.
“The guy across the street, I didn’t even know his name until we flooded,” said Jesse Wasserberg.
So the family is hosting a dinner with their new found neighbors. For them this anniversary is a chance to sit around a new table and heal from the flood as a community.
“Looking back, I’m just trying to be grateful, I really am,” said Virginia.
The city of Virginia Beach said they are committing $42,000,000 to a 6-year Capital Improvement Plan, plus $86,000,000 to fund the plan past that.
Virginia Beach officials said they think they can decrease flooding on the road ways down to 3 inches but, the city would need 3 big pumping stations.
On December 12th Virginia Beach Public Works, Engineering Services - will talk about flood control and a storm water program update.