BRUIN — After Thursday's torrential downpour flooded his home, Andrew Engelbrecht took to cleaning up.

Then Sunday happened.

“Our house flooded on Thursday. It was pretty much a total loss,” said Engelbrecht of Bruin. “We started cleaning it up, and this happened.”

Engelbrecht was one of the area residents who sought temporary shelter from Sunday's flash flooding at the Bruin Volunteer Fire Department, 100 Firehouse Drive.

Engelbrecht moved to Bruin 13 days ago, with the two floods serving as a rude welcome.

Engelbrecht sent his family to a hotel while he stayed in town and connected with the Red Cross at the fire station.

When residents' homes became endangered by the flooding, the department decided to open its doors, said Bob Hackbarth, president of the Bruin VFD. The temporary shelter will remain open as needed.

“We have flooded basements; we have one house which has sustained potentially significant structure damage because of the flood water. We have several roads which are impacted by the water — some flooding, some washing away of the road — and we have multiple calls in the area of power outages,” Hackbarth said. The department covers Bruin borough and Parker Township and provides mutual aid to other areas.

It was the second time in the four days the department set up the shelter, he said.

Typically, the department offers the shelter from ice storms and cold temperatures or for power outages, Hackbarth said.

“Especially with the children and the elderly, then we make sure we have something set up for them,” he said.

Bruin resident Peggy Emery came to the shelter to volunteer her assistance.

“It's been a horrible, horrible summer,” Emery said about the recent weather. “We've never had this much rain.”

She recalled one previous time in the 1980s when the area flooded, but that doesn't compare to recent times, she said.

In addition to volunteering at the shelter, Emery said she and others checked on the elderly and offered them rides to the shelter.

“The community works all together,” she said. “We are a close knit community.”