With Hanna, Flood of Bad Memories in Huntington

What caused Fairfax County's working-class Huntington neighborhood to flood again over the weekend is easy enough to understand: The local waterway was moved closer to homes decades ago during a Capital Beltway construction project and has filled with silt. Development upstream has also sped the onrush of runoff.

Harder to grasp -- or at least, for many residents, to accept -- is the flow of political decisions that have left hundreds of residents of one of the nation's richest counties unprotected from even moderate storms.

"Most of us that are in it feel like the government has really done diddly squat," said Kate Wersinger, a secretary at a District law firm who bought her home south of Alexandria four years ago. Her retaining wall held back the water this time, but the $60,000 in damage from a 2006 storm was still weighing heavily yesterday.

Residents could still see the silty residue of Tropical Storm Hanna on their roads and sidewalks yesterday, signs that, yet again, brown storm waters had rushed over the banks of Cameron Run and into their lives. The damage was minimal -- four basements flooded, and sheds full of equipment and mementos were drenched.

But also left behind was the fear and frustration that comes with the perpetual threat of flooding, and the realization that, even in the sunniest of scenarios, a fix could still be years away. Studies since the 1970s have called for major improvements.

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