‘We Lost Everything’ after Floods

Photos by: Mary Davidson
Story by: Uriah Kiser

Woodbridge, Va. — Flood waters started building on U.S. 1 in Woodbridge when Marumsco Creek toppled its banks Thursday afternoon. Police closed the highway one lane at a time before it became impassable.

Buddy Sigmond has worked at A & M Auto Body, in the center of the flood zone, for the past 16 years.

“We lost everything, all of the equipment, a truck, I’ve never seen anything like it. Water in the building was seven feet high,” said Sigmond.

They didn’t have flood insurance and he wasn’t there when the flood waters began to rise.

“I wish I was, maybe I could l have saved some of the equipment, something, anything,” he said.

The waters didn’t just take businesses; they took the homes of more than 300 people now living in a Red Cross Shelter at Woodbridge Senior High School. Their mobile homes — across the street from the auto shop — have all been condemned after they were ripped from their foundations.

In the neighborhood Friday, those who appeared to have lost everything worked to pick up the pieces in muddy conditions that resembled a war zone.

After the homes were washed from their foundations, sewage problems have made the area uninhabitable, said Prince William spokeswoman Nicole Brown.

At the shelter, officials say it will be open for the remainder of the weekend. The Red Cross has asked residents not to bring donations of any kind to the shelter due to security concerns. Though they are appreciated, the aid agency says they have all they need to assist the victims, officials say.

Prince William County’s Department of Social Services has been charged with helping those displaced with finding a new place to live.

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell declared a state of emergency last night, which allows state agencies to provide quicker emergency assistance to places like Woodbridge.

“After they declared a state of emergency, maybe we’ll get some kind of help here,” said Sigmond.

The flood waters claimed three lives, including the drowning death of a man whose body was found on Davidson Airfield at Fort Belvoir.