'We had a tree in the house'
EVANS CITY — Trees fell uphill on Third Street.
At some point between 5 and 6 p.m. Tuesday, a gust of wind and water cut a path diagonally across the road and up a hill, bringing trees along with it. Residents heard booms and shakes, then emerged later to find a narrow line of destruction only about as wide as two properties.
Amanda Smith, the owner of one of the homes in that line, said her family was sitting together in her living room when they heard a loud noise and ran to the basement.
“When we came back up from the basement, we had a tree in the house,” Smith said.
They also had roof damage and brick damage. The tree broke through their roof trusses. The damage shocked them, and had the family dreading the next round of coming storms.
“It came fast,” she said. Smith recalled the storm from her front lawn Wednesday morning. Nearby, volunteering neighbors were busy with chainsaws.Borough council Vice President Kim Armstrong pulled up in a car to survey the damage. After trying to deal with her own flooded basement, Armstrong hit the streets to see who else needed help.“Our community members are rallying around each other,” Armstrong said.A few of Smith's neighbors suffered similar tree situations. One had a smashed windshield and a downed power line. Another found a tree on his porch.A few miles away along the same strip of destruction, similar disaster could be found. A big oak tree with about a 10-foot circumference fell on Larry Matko's house on Cashdollar Road in Adams Township.
“It was more the shaking of the house that got me than the actual sound,” Matko said.The tree hit around 5:30 p.m. The family endured torrential downpours until around 10 p.m.Matko, 56, sounded tired Wednesday. He said he had friends out helping, but that the cleanup was exhausting. They've lived in the house for 25 years.Back on Third Street, many speculated that a microburst was to blame.Shannon Hefferan, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh, doesn't think so. The conditions and the area aren't right for one, she said. Rather, Hefferan supposed, they simply suffered the output of a nasty storm.A microburst is a spherical formation, she said, that typically forms in western parts of the United States. It hits hard in a small area, like this storm did, but falls flat rather than cutting a long path. Hefferan called it a destructive “splat.”However, the NWS recorded dangerous weather in Evans City Tuesday. Hefferan said the area received about five inches of rain in a “very short amount of time.”
All that water caused a headache for Gospel Life Church off Washington Street. The church sits near Breakneck Creek.Breakneck lived up to its name, according to Dave Trepanier, the church pastor.“We had people looking at the church at 11 p.m. and it was fine,” Trepanier said. Just a few hours later, the basement held several feet of water.Trepanier said he ran into an office building beside the church to salvage books in storage there.“When I went in, it was up to here,” the pastor said, pointing to the top of his rain boots. “When I left, it was here.” He moved his hand to his knee.The church has flood insurance and a hard-working congregation, Trepanier said, so he's not worried. They planned to hold an emergency leadership meeting, and spent much of Wednesday pumping out the basement.Their case was not isolated. Every night, Butler County's emergency communications system publishes a report documenting the past 24 hours of calls.Between 5:30 p.m. and midnight Tuesday, the report lists 102 dispatches labeled “flood.”
