Recalling the series of events that led to Williamsburg getting its floodwall

Flooding.

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

The sheer terrifying force of Mother Nature unleashed in the form of flowing, rushing and rising water that leaves devastation, destruction and a trail of stinking, stagnant mud and mold in its wake.

The recent massive flash flooding event in eastern Kentucky, which has seen the deaths of over 35 people, serves as a reminder of the power of nature.

This got me thinking about the long history of the Cumberland River flooding in Williamsburg, which includes the great flood of 1977 that saw people taking boat rides up a flood covered Main Street.

Given this, many would probably presume that there was universal consensus to build a floodwall in Williamsburg in the 1990s, but this wasn’t exactly the case as I recall it.

First a little history about flood control along the Cumberland River.

During his first weekend on the job in 1981, U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers flew over the Cumberland River with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers asking them what could be done to protect the towns along it from flooding, including Harlan, Pineville, Barbourville and Williamsburg. Then he did a double swallow when told the price tag.

Harlan, Pineville and Barbourville got their floodwalls first.

When the Corps of Engineers finally came to Williamsburg and asked if the town was interested in a floodwall, then Mayor Marcella Mountjoy naturally said yes. Then Corps of Engineers officials asked a surprise question about whether Williamsburg could “share” the costs?

“Share the costs? Everybody up stream got theirs for free,” Mountjoy famously answered.

By the time flood control got to Williamsburg, Congress had changed the law requiring local communities to be cost sharing partners, which amounted to 5 percent of the project cost.

For the little town of Williamsburg, this ended up amounting to a little over $1 million, which in the 1990s was a considerable sum of money.

Town officials initially had no clue how they were going to pay for it. Fortunately, Bob Arnold, who was the commissioner of the department of local government in Frankfort, came through helping secure the matching money from the state for the project along with then 82^nd Rep. Charlie Siler.

On May 1, 1995, ground was broken for the $22 million flood control project. A total of 4,945 feet of levees and 466 feet of floodwall was constructed.

While there was broad support for it, there was less than a unanimous opinion about the wisdom of building the floodwall, and I can recall numerous conversations with some intelligent people about it in the 1990s.

There were quite a few people, who thought the better idea was dredging the Cumberland River in order to remove debris from the bottom of it and speed up the flow of water in the river, which still has some merits.

Others thought building the floodwall in Williamsburg was a bad idea for fear of worsening flooding out in the county.

I can even recall some conversations with people about how you could just move everyone in Williamsburg out of the flood plain and to higher ground for the price they were paying to build the floodwall. While this may seem a little out there, given property values in the 1990s, this might have even been a remotely viable option with something like a park built on the land inside the floodplain.

While there was some reservations at first, today I think everyone in Williamsburg is thankful for the floodwall.

When the Cumberland River had its third highest crest ever on Feb. 8, 2020, at 34.84 feet in Williamsburg there weren’t any boat trips up Main Street, unless maybe someone was pulling a boat on a trailer.

This was due mainly to the floodwall, and Rogers deserves much of the thanks for it.

None of the flood control projects along the Cumberland River were ever included in any president’s budget, either Republican or Democrat, and funding for each project had to be line-itemed by Rogers into the budget.

“The dedication of Congressman Rogers is the reason it is here. Every time the Cumberland River gets up, everybody should give him a round of applause,” then Williamsburg Mayor Bill Nighbert noted during the floodwall’s Aug. 23, 1999, dedication ceremony.