UNIDENTIFIED OPERATOR #1: What's happening, ma'am? SMITH: We were afraid the place we were going to go was down. UNIDENTIFIED OPERATOR #1: What's going on? SMITH: I remember telling the 911 operator that the floor was buckling. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: There's people in the water. UNIDENTIFIED OPERATOR #1: We are currently underwater, and I have about 15 to 30 people in here, and we are trapped inside. UNIDENTIFIED OPERATOR #2: Howard County 911. HERSHER: It happened fast - like, 15 minutes - for Main Street to go from wet to a raging river. UNIDENTIFIED OPERATOR #1: What's your address? UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: We are at Bean Hollow in old Ellicott City on Frederick Road. UNIDENTIFIED OPERATOR #1: Ma'am, what's going on? And then we see the water going down the street start to get a little bit higher until it's up to the curb of the sidewalk. SMITH: So it started raining, and - no big deal. HERSHER: In July 2016, Rachel Smith had just graduated from high school, and she was working at a coffee shop on Main Street called Bean Hollow. RACHEL SMITH: I think the rain started around 6. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Just incredible amounts of rain in the Ellicott City area. HERSHER: Ellicott City feels special to the people who live there, which is why what's happening there is so scary. TENNANT: It's one of the best cities in the state of Maryland, a great destination for people all over the nation. HERSHER: If you talk to Sally for more than, like, five minutes, she'll tell you what I now think of as the motto of historic Ellicott City. Like, for the last 30-something years, the best way to catch up with Sally Tennant was to just walk into her store Discoveries, which I've done a lot in the last year. It's a small place, the kind of neighborhood where most interactions happen face-to-face and neighbors tend to be friends. Now there's about half a mile of restaurants and boutiques that are much more charming because you can hear the water as you window-shop. The original buildings down here were mills. And when you get to the bottom, the rivers converge around Main Street, and then they dip down and go under the buildings. REBECCA HERSHER, BYLINE: No matter which way you come when you drive into old Ellicott City in Maryland, you have to go down a long, long hill with rivers on all sides. It's called Ellicott City, and she has watched as the people who live and work on the town's main street have struggled to save the place they love before it's too late. NPR's Rebecca Hersher has spent the last year visiting a small community in Maryland that's facing an existential threat from flash floods. Some of the buildings' granite stone will also be repurposed, she said.Now a story about what happens when climate change hits Main Street.
Caplan's, at 8125 Main St., has already had its rear portion removed.Īny historically significant architectural items on or in the buildings will be removed and preserved, Walsh said. It is unclear if the buildings will then be connected to form one or remain separate. Six other buildings will have their back portions removed, though their facades will remain unchanged. "We will do it as efficiently as possible."
"We certainly want to have the minimum disruption to the neighbors and businesses," Walsh said.
The community's historic district was ravaged by floods that left two dead in 2016 and one in 2018, resulted in millions in damage and sent more than 8 feet of water on Main Street after rainwater overwhelmed the Tiber River and poured out of the channel.ĭemolition on Main Street should take about four to six months once it begins, Walsh estimated. "We have some preliminary approvals," Sharon Walsh, chief of design and construction for the Howard County Department of Public Works' Bureau of Facilities, said Thursday. "We're tentatively planning to begin demolition in spring 2022," said Shaina Hernandez, senior adviser of policy for County Executive Calvin Ball's administration.Īs part of the Ellicott City Safe and Sound plan, the four lower Main Street buildings scheduled to be demolished - Phoenix Emporium, Great Panes Art Glass Studio, Discoveries and Bean Hollow - will allow other aspects of the planned flood mitigation plan to work, including installing a culvert under Maryland Avenue connecting the Tiber-Hudson to the Patapsco and boring the north tunnel parallel to Main Street from 8800 Frederick Road to the Patapsco River. 6-The demolition of four buildings on Main Street as part of the Ellicott City flood mitigation efforts could begin in spring 2022 if all approvals are in place, according to Howard County officials.
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