Virginia City Forced to Adapt to Rising Seas

Flooding closes this pedestrian walkway in downtown Norfolk. (Credit: City of Norfolk)

Rising sea level, high tides combine with severe weather to flood Norfolk streets, effectively isolating neighborhoods in this city of 250,000. (Credit: City of Norfolk)

When it floods in Norfolk everyone suffers as the region is flat, the legacy of a meteor that hit southeastern Virginia 35 million years ago. (Credit: Skip Stiles)

Even when flood water recedes tell-tale stains remain on the sidewalk. (Rosanne Skirble/VOA)

Some early builders in Norfolk saw the threat from the sea and built homes on raised banks of earth. (Rosanne Skirble/VOA)

The future of this school on a Norfolk river is uncertain because of high tides, sinking land and sea level rise. (Rosanne Skirble/VOA)

Norfolk city government is taking aggressive steps to adapt to rising waters, elevating some houses on higher brick foundations at flood hot spots. (Rosanne Skirble/VOA)

Another short-term fix is to raise roads near like this major artery near a Norfolk medical center. (Rosanne Skirble/VOA)

In some residential neighborhoods the city is promoting wetland regrowth to absorb some of the flooding waters. (Rosanne Skirble/VOA)

Sea walls help keep the water at bay around the city. (Rosanne Skirble/VOA)

Norfolk is a maritime, military and transportation hub in southeastern Virginia. (Rosanne Skirble/VOA)

Rain and heavy winds in 2003 from Hurricane Isabel flood fleet parking at Naval Station Norfolk, trapping vehicles in water as high as their windows. (Credit: U.S. Navy)

A Langley Air Force Base, Va., firefighter pulls a boat loaded with evacuees through the flood waters of Hurricane Floyd on Sept. 16, 1999. (Credit: U.S. Air Force.)