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Virginia Beach emergency management briefs council on slightly above‑average hurricane season and tighter federal assistance
Summary
Emergency management officials told council that NOAA projects a slightly above‑average 2025 hurricane season and warned federal disaster assistance is becoming more stringent, urging residents to register for VB Alert and for the city to maintain self‑reliance through updated contracts and EOC upgrades.
David Topczynski, director of emergency management, briefed the Virginia Beach City Council on June 24 about the 2025 hurricane season outlook and the city’s preparedness posture. "NOAA's forecast is a slightly above average season. They have 70% confidence in their forecast," Topczynski said.
Topczynski emphasized that rainfall and storm remnants, not only landfalling hurricanes, have produced the deadliest impacts in recent years and that impacts hundreds of miles from a storm’s center can be severe. He told council that federal disaster programs are shifting more cost and administrative responsibility to states and localities and that approvals for federal assistance may be more stringent and take longer to process.
The briefing highlighted capacity and resilience improvements the city has completed or is finalizing: an EOC modernization, standby contracts for disaster services and recovery, a deployable emergency operations center, an ArcGIS situational awareness tool, and a comprehensive recovery plan planned for council review in October. Staff also described exercises the city has run to test shelter and evacuation operations and the city’s plans to coordinate earlier and more detailed federal assistance requests if needed.
Topczynski urged residents to sign up for VB Alert and to consult the city’s emergency preparedness web resources. He advised councils and residents to evaluate personal evacuation plans, insurance coverage (including flood insurance), and where households would shelter if ordered to evacuate.
Council members asked about lane reversal authority (the governor makes that decision), the practicality of phased community evacuations versus system‑wide orders, the availability of cooling centers during an extended heat wave, and local NOAA staffing. Topczynski said the National Weather Service Wakefield office remains staffed and that the city supplements forecasts with a grant‑funded private meteorology service for finer‑scale guidance.
The emergency management briefing closed with staff noting that the city will continue to refine community‑level evacuation modeling and messaging to residents.
