In 2016, my commercial investment properties on Main Street in Ellicott City were utterly destroyed by “a flood.” There is much debate over what caused this “flood.” Exceptional circumstances around events on my particular block had me in a legal battle with an insurance company.

I may have been the only property owner that did not rush in to repair the properties. Instead, thanks to my wonderful and wise husband, we hired a geo-tech firm and engineering team to study the cause of our damage and create an estimate for repair. It took one year to complete the study.

On May 31, 2018, a second heavy rain storm ravaged Ellicott City. This second storm was “even more destructive” to the historic town. On June 1, 2018, I wrote this post on my personal Facebook Page in response to emails, texts, and phone calls I was getting from friends, family, and former business associates.

I watched in complete amazement as the post went viral. Opening up to my friends and acquaintances led to great support, which made me feel better about my process.

With over 5000 people sharing the post, I realized that people love this old town and want to know more about the story.

That’s what I am attempting to offer here.

All of the words published on this blog are my own.

Please contact me here if you are with the media and want more information.

Why am I writing this blog? Everyone is pointing their finger at mother nature. While she is fierce, from my perspective, this seems more a failure of politicians, developers, county leadership, et al. not to sufficiently anticipate what impact development might have with flood management “in a watershed known for flooding. “

When politicians get up on their podium and dither about not knowing if water is rising from the river below or coming down the hill and suggest that it makes no difference, they are speaking untruths, either in ignorance bordering negligence or deliberately to obscure the truth.

It makes me upset enough to want to say something about it.

I am not a conspiracy theorist.

Nobody on any level accepts responsibility for this man-made situation.

Not the people who overdeveloped upstream.

Not the people who let them do it.

Not the people who maintain the city utilities.

Not the politicians.

Nobody.

It was not until this town was irresponsibly overdeveloped up the hill that there were issues with flooding in the way it happened on July 30, 2016, at this level or from this direction.

I am not arguing that there was not a lot of rain on July 30, 2016. I am arguing that only a big rainstorm was not the cause of the majority of the damage in this city.

There were once politicians who protected this historic town.

What went wrong?

They continued to develop, despite the devastation.