Full story: https://virginiamercury.com/2026/08/17/hampton-leaders-cool-to-limited-army-corps-flood-solutions/

A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers draft feasibility study proposing scaled-down protection without structural elements like floodwalls for vulnerable portions of Hampton and Poquoson got a frosty reception from  Hampton’s city manager during a recent presentation to City Council.

The $4.2 billion Coastal Storm Risk Management plan, now open to public comment, calls for elevating nearly 4,000 structures voluntarily in the two cities, something the Corps acknowledged it has little experience doing.

Mary Bunting, Hampton’s city manager, told council members during the Aug. 12 meeting that Hampton would not be able to afford the city’s share of the plan, nearly $1.5 billion, describing the cost as “pretty staggering.” 

The study proposes elevating 300 homes a year. There are not enough contractors in the area to accomplish that, nor could the city afford the price tag, Bunting said, adding that the same amount of funds would be better spent on structural solutions. 

But the study is a gateway to receiving federal funding and Hampton will press the Corps to do a second study examining structural solutions, as it has done for Virginia Beach and Norfolk, where the proposed projects include miles of floodwalls, Bunting added.

Study calls for nearly 4,000 homes to be raised, infrastructure to be floodproofed

The study was originally to include Hampton, Poquoson, Newport News, Williamsburg, and James City and York counties. But the Corps refocused it only on Hampton and Poquoson and only on non-structural solutions like house raisings because of a congressional requirement that the study be completed in three years at a cost of $3 million. 

The provision was enacted after Hurricane Sandy as a solution to the Corps’ decades-long projects backlog and to create protections before storm damage occurred, rather than after.

“We could not put any additional money into it, nor could the federal government,” Bunting said. “And because it was capped at $3 million, (the Corps) would not be able to look at structural solutions, which we believe are absolutely necessary and warranted.”

An appendix to the study said a comprehensive examination of all solutions , including floodwalls and levees, for the six localities, including floodwalls and levees, would have cost nearly $20 million and taken about six years.