This tropical storm/depression really hit the Richmond area and points east of us really hard with an UNHEARD of amount of rain (almost a SOLID 12 inches in a 6 hour period!). Don't know about the folks down south. I can only imagine right now how they fared. Maybe Mike W. can add a report.
Certain sections of the expressways, parkways and I-95 north of Richmond (and MANY area roads) are shut down due to flooding ranging from 3 feet all the way up to 12 feet of standing water. Mud slides have buried some roads (including the expressways), Shockoe Bottom (a recently developed area of Richmond for higher income folks) is declared a disaster area with about 12 feet of water. Only 3 of the 6 bridges crossing the James River remained open during the storm; only 1 is still closed due to flooding and mudslides.
Powhite Creek looked like it was going to flood the parkway, and it looks like it did. I saw a car this morning on the closed section that was COVERED in mud. The James River hit flood stage in the downtown area while the upper sections only hit their normal high levels. That is how much rain the city section got--enough to flood the river
It took me an hour to get home and that is only because I quickly realized that certain major roads where shutting down and traffic was backing up (BADLY) and I managed to get across the Powhite Parkway Bridge before they shut it down. It took my wife 5 HOURS to get home. 1 1/2 hours to get out of Church Hill (with me trying to read a city road map by flashlight and figuring out where she was and trying to find a bridge that was still open so she could cross the interstate), 3 hours of creeping along on the Downtown Expressway because a mudslide had buried the road and bulldozers were pushing the mud back, and 30 minutes to finally arrive home. That was pretty typical for everyone who left work at 5:00 last night.
We have no electricity, again. Guess I'll wrap things up here at work now and go boating. That was an INCREDIBLE system. I am REALLY glad it did not get hung up in the Appalachian Mountains.
WOW! We only got 2" South of the border. Not even enough to bring the creek up . I sure hope that everyone is ok up in Richmond.
With a report like KNeal's, it's amazing to think that Sunday we scraped the plastic through Hollywood . We ended up looking for playspots for my foamie .
The Appomattox hit 13.5'! I sure wish that I could get up there & see the whirlpool .
I'm stuck on call through next Tuesday morning. Seems like I always miss the good water. Not that I want to be in that stuff today, but I'm thinking that the weekend should be good.
The strange thng is that the James River only rose a small amount, considering the amount of rain- most of the rain was over the City and East. I took a run along the River today, and it looked like it was running at about a little less than 6 feet-discolored but less than two feet higher than when I ran it on Thursday last week.
The news footage last night made some of the downtown streets look like the North Branch- fast rolling water- the strange part was seeing SUV's surfing, instead of C boats! My brother told me that he left his office at 6pm and it took 2 hours to move 4 blocks- he then parked the truck and took a nap while waiting for the roads to clear off- For you Northerners- how many feet of snow would 14 inchs of rain convert to?
Be safe and don't paddle floods!
Brendan
I don't think we in SC appreciated what we missed... Richmond will be a while in recovering from that one. Here's hoping Frances weakens some more before visiting Florida...
. I sure hope that everyone is ok up in Richmond. 
. We ended up looking for playspots for my foamie 
.
