Emergency services busy due to flooded basements, roads in Butler County
Fire departments across Butler County saw an influx of calls during severe storms Sunday night, May 4. Calls were primarily due to flooded basements and roads, but included a car struck by lightning.
According to Rob McLafferty, Butler County Emergency Services coordinator, the county’s 911 center received numerous calls related to Sunday’s storms. There were nine downed wires or trees, 16 flooding calls, one pole down, 10 flooded roads and one vehicle stuck on a flooded road.
“Last night was definitely busy for us, but it was nothing like last Tuesday,” McLafferty said.
The effects of Sunday’s storms were felt across the county, as calls ranged from Slippery Rock to Sarver, McLafferty said. First responders also said calls routinely led to a response to multiple incidents in the area.
He said the dispatch center prepares for severe weather by calling in additional staff. For Monday night, there wasn’t an immediate need to increase staffing, but members of both the dispatch crew and the center’s administration would be ready if need be, McLafferty said.
Chief Mike Schmidt, of the Butler Township Volunteer Fire District, said his crews responded to about 10 incidents in seven hours related to the storms, with most of them due to flooded basements.
Schmidt said when homeowners find part of their home flooded, they often call 911 without a clear idea of how emergency services can help them. He said in these incidents, the fire district has commercial pumps it can deploy in residential homes that remove water until about 2 to 3 inches remain.
Schmidt said the district sometimes cannot help homeowners with flooding, if there isn’t enough water for the pump to work, but all incidents the district responded to Sunday had enough.
Butler County has severe storms where large amounts of flooding are seen about four times per year, Schmidt said, and he encourages homeowners to purchase their own pumps. He said one of the only issues he has seen with residential pumps are when people don’t buy enough hosing to get the water far enough away from their house, so it soaks back into their basement.
Schmidt recommended purchasing more than 10 feet of hosing to avoid this.
The fire district also was dispatched to help township police after flooding washed large amounts of debris onto Old Plank Road near Dutchtown Road, Schmidt said.
It was dispatched again around 9:20 p.m. when lightning stuck a car beside a house on East Drive. Schmidt said neighbors called 911 for a car fire after hearing the alarm going off, but firefighters said it was mostly out by the time they arrived.
Schmidt said his crews had trouble finding the vehicle at first in the darkness until they saw the burn marks from the lightning strike. The car was a total loss, and Schmidt said his crews and the homeowner were fortunate the strike did not spread to the home.
