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National Weather Service to Raise Danville Flood Stages

National Weather Service

The National Weather Service is currently considering raising the flood stage for portions of the Dan River.

Right now, the National Weather Service will issue a Flood Warning for the Dan River if it reaches 17 feet near the city of Danville.

As it turns out, that level may be too low.

“And what we found is when we had this minor flooding at roughly 17 or 18 feet, there were very little or no impacts,” says Phil Hysell with the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg. "No roads were flooded and there were no impacts to the Danville community.”

Hysell says officials have been monitoring that area since 2015 to determine if a change was needed.

“We met with community leaders, emergency management, water resource officials in the city of Danville, and they had very detailed records of when roads did become impacted, and based on that information, we are proposing to increase that flood stage,” says Hysell.

That proposal of raising the minimum flood stage to 21 feet will likely take effect May 15th – barring any negative feedback from the community.

Nick Gilmore is a meteorologist, news producer and reporter/anchor for RADIO IQ.