This article was written by Rona Kobell and originally published on December 19, 2022, here in The Baltimore Banner.
There have been no anniversary celebrations to commemorate the Irvington flood, no news articles a year or five years later where residents of the Southwest Baltimore neighborhood recount where they were when the waters surged down the street in 2016 and again in 2018.
In order for an event to be commemorated, it has to be recognized in the first place — and Irvington’s flooding never was.
Such are the perils of living in the shadow of Ellicott City, the beloved historic shopping and living district that barely survived two 100-year floods within two years of each other. Those floods got plenty of attention.
Irvington was so invisible that when the pastor of one of its churches, Pastor Michael Martin of Stillmeadow Community Fellowship Church, was coordinating a food and rescue effort after the 2018 flood, he took a break only to see himself on TV identified as an “Ellicott City pastor.”
