The Wrap: A historic tornado outbreak, Bird scooters get a nod from the mayor, free rides to the polls, and a wine festival giveaway

Photo: @skyphotography4

The week in brief

Good afternoon faithful Wrap readers. It’s a relatively calm end to a week that started off pretty crazy on Monday with a historic tornado outbreak spawn by the remnants of Hurricane Florence. As of today, the National Weather Service has confirmed 10 (!) tornadoes touched down. That’s unprecedented. Three of them were in the City of Richmond, and the strongest, which touched down off of Hull Street Road in Midlothian destroyed the warehouse of Old Dominion Flooring, tragically killing an employee inside. Check out some of the craziest photos and videos from Monday’s outbreak here. Also, if your property saw damage from the high winds, the city will pick up your debris for free through October 2nd. Here’s what you need to do.

Richmond’s Mayor, Levar Stoney, has had a busy week. Besides touring tornado damage in Northside, he’s released a draft plan to permit Bird Scooters (and other operators) to run dockless scooter programs in the city. That plan must now go before City Council. Here’s what it will require Bird (and other future operators) to do. Stoney also wants to provide citizens with free GRTC bus service to get to the polls on Election Day, November 6th. More on that plan here.

When you walk or bike around our urban landscape you become very aware of how much of that landscape dedicated to the car. A car, which in most cases is only transporting one human takes up a disproportionate amount of space not only in operation but at rest. When you think about it, throwing money into the meter allows you to lease a small piece of expensive city property. That’s what today, Park(ing) Day, is all about–using that lease for making a tiny urban park instead of temporary car storage. The first Park(ing) Day took place way back in 2005 and has spread globally. Today’s event includes a parklet in a parking space downtown, showing what that space could look like as green space. It’s a pretty cool concept–check it out here.

Five things you need to know

1. A new study has ranked Scott’s Addition and the surrounding area Virginia’s number one hotspot for Millennials.
2. The Richmond SPCA has taken in a lot of animals impacted by Hurricane Florence–here’s how you can adopt one this weekend.
3. The mighty James River is angry after all that rain from Florence. Here’s what you need to know to stay safe if you venture down to its banks.
4. Richmond is hosting meetings on its Richmond 300 master plan–here’s how to make your voice heard.
5. Ukrop’s famous breakfast pizza is back by popular demand, and people are kind of going crazy over it (myself included).

Weekend event picks

By Richard Hayes

Giveaways

Powhatan’s Festival of the Grape returns October 16th for its sweet 16th. Wanna go? I’ve got a pair of tickets to give away. All you need to do is email me and tell me your favorite Virginia winery. A winner will randomly be selected later today. Cheers! Here’s info on this year’s festival.

Until next time,

Trevor Dickerson
Editor, RVAHub