NORFOLK, Va. (WVEC) — Even without rain, high tides force Ben Baker to drive through water to leave his home.
"The first couple of times we saw it, it was... well you don't really expect water up in your driveway," Baker said. "The seawall here is so low that at certain times of the month the [Lafayette River] will just come over the sea wall."
Baker is a doctor in the Navy. He said the flooding may look bad at times, but the car gets through it just fine. With flooding on a normal weekday, Baker isn't alone in wondering what would happen if a major storm like Hurricane Florence hit Norfolk.
"If the hurricane would've hit here instead of down in North Carolina, we could've been having a different conversation," he said.
FEMA is targeting Baker's home and 6 other flood-prone houses throughout Norfolk as potential grant recipients. Norfolk City Council approved $1.1 million for 7 houses, most along the Lafayette River or within the Ocean View neighborhood.
FEMA will pay for 75 percent of the cost to raise these homes above projected flood levels, with state funds paying an additional 20 percent of the cost. Homeowners are required to contribute 5 percent. FEMA officials said for every dollar spent on hazard mitigation, 6 dollars are saved on future costs and losses.
Paying only 5 percent of the total cost to raise her home sounds like a dream for Helen Joyce Jenkins.
"It's a blessing I mean no one gets a break like that," she said. "That's like manna from heaven, that would be ideal."
Jenkins moved from Norfolk from Houston and knows what happened there during Hurricane Harvey, so she's interested in raising her home 'just in case.'
The houses weren't randomly chosen. Years ago, previous homeowners applied to FEMA for Severe Repetitive Loss qualification. It's a competitive selection process that can take years. Now, new homeowners like Baker and Jenkins have the option to accept grant money to raise their houses, but Baker still has questions.
"I'd like to see how long it would take and how it would change the property because I assume they don't come in at 8 a.m. and have your house raised by 9 a.m," he said.
In the past 5 years, 19 other homeowners in Norfolk have chosen to have their properties raised with the grant money. The City of Norfolk is currently accepting design and contractor requests for the current 7 projects, city spokesperson Lori Crouch said.
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