GRUNDY The four-lane highway snakes through the mountains to the seat of Buchanan County, tripping over falling-down communities along the way, with houses set into hillsides that would be considered nearly impossible anywhere else.

Grundy used to consist of whatever buildings could be crammed along the road and the Levisa River on the few flat spots it has to offer, places that periodically flood.

Soon the floods will stop, and U.S. 460, still lined with boarded-up, Depression-era storefronts, will open onto an oasis of modernity where Grundy has literally moved a mountain to make way for its future.

As the town's flood-control, highway and downtown-moving project reaches its 10-year mark next month, the new Grundy is poised for launch.

"Good, slow, steady growth is the key to success, and Grundy has a wonderful future ahead of it," said Chuck Crabtree, who served as town manager and industrial development authority chairman during most of the project. "They have an opportunity that most small communities in the United States would absolutely die for."

Through an unprecedented partnership with the Virginia Department of Transportation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, this community of about 1,000 people is nearing completion of its goal: a new, flood-proof downtown complete with a highway.

With a cost of more than $250 million, the project will be completed with about $250,000 having been spent for every man, woman and child in Grundy.

"It's important to me because the survival of Grundy was at stake," said Rep. Rick Boucher, D-9th, who got involved with discussions about the project soon after he took office in 1983. "You can't really put a price tag on the life or death of a community."

In 1977, the town suffered a massive flood when 16 inches of rain fell in one day upstream, drowning not only the physical downtown but also its economy.

Without the money to rebuild, and with added government regulation making it impossible in some cases, business owners simply shut their doors and left the town's commercial buildings full of mud to rot.

It wasn't long before people started looking for a solution to the flooding that had killed the town. Crabtree, who is semi-retired in North Carolina, said the rescue project -- while it officially began in 1998 -- has been going on for more than 25 years.

"It wasn't just someone coming up with an idea. It took years of research and development to devise a plan to work," he said. "Grundy sits in the bend of a river, and you've got two mountainsides and a railroad track and a river, and you've got Route 460, and it's hard to figure out a way to flood-proof an area like that."

There was also another obstacle: the cost.

Boucher, who represents Southwest Virginia, helped bring together different groups to devise a plan that would accomplish multiple objectives.

The Virginia Department of Transportation was under federal mandate to finish U.S. 460 through Grundy. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was looking at a flood-proofing project. Grundy officials wanted to rebuild the commercial district.

What was devised was a solution that involved cooperation among federal, state and local governments to overlap the projects -- and thereby cut the cost in half.

Of course, the downtown project has always had its naysayers. As the project nears the 10-year mark, some complain it has taken too long.

"It's obvious what's going on here. It's a bunch of nothing," said Jason Sparks, 28, a lifelong resident of the town. "I think it's taking way too long. They need to do something about the highway."

Mayor Roger Powers had to give up his family business to make way for U.S. 460, but he is eager to see the new downtown complete.

"On Saturdays, it would be hard to walk on the streets of Grundy, there were so many people," Powers said of the town in its heyday. "It will never be like it was in the '50s, but it will bring the business back."

Debra McCown writes for the Bristol Herald Courier.