Remnants of hurricane wreaked havoc in 1954
The remnants of Hurricane Ivan caused flooding as it passed through Butler a decade ago, but the storm didn't have quite the impact on the city as another hurricane did half a century earlier.
The 60th anniversary of Hurricane Hazel will be on Wednesday. The remnants of the hurricane hit Butler at about 8 a.m. on Oct. 15, 1954, which was a Friday.
A downpour of 4.4 inches left a large portion of the city flooded by nightfall.
“It wasn't good at all,” said former mayor Richard Schontz Sr. “It was a mess.”
Schontz, who was at the time of the flood still decades away from serving as mayor, said he remembers the flood quite well.
“There were a lot of row boats,” Schontz said. “If you wanted to get anywhere, you had to use a row boat.”
The West End, ranging from Fourth Avenue to Chestnut Street and from the Connoquenessing Creek to Brady Street, flooded, forcing hundreds of residents to leave their homes. Some homes were only visible above the first floor.
Stores, like Klugh's Market on West Cunningham Street and Kroger's Supermarket, had floodwaters wash out their stocked inventories.
The eastern side of the city didn't fare much better. The Butler Athletic Field, which had recently been renovated for $43,000, was drowned in 5 feet of water.
“That was probably the worst flood the city has had,” Schontz said.
The flood caused more than $1 million in damage at the time. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' inflation calculator indicates that would equal about $9 million today.
Pullman Standard estimated $200,000 worth of damage to its rail car plant. An average of 18 inches of water covered the entire plant, reaching 3 feet deep in some sections.
Debris, ranging from large logs to toys, floated through the streets.The water receded relatively quickly. By Saturday afternoon, traffic was able to drive through the West End.But it took some time before the city was back functioning as normal. Firefighters worked throughout the week following the flood to assist affected families. Powerful pumps were used to remove water from basements.“It took awhile to clean up,” Schontz said.Mayor Walter Schweppe at the time reported the streets department removed 107 truckloads of debris during two days of cleanup.Hundreds of curious sightseers interfered with the cleanup process, as cars filled the streets after the water subsided.Judy Snyder, a city resident who was in high school at the time, said she remembered seeing the trash lining the streets of the West End.“It took a lot of work,” she said.Once cleanup was completed, West End residents turned their attention to flood control.The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducted a study that eventually relocated the Connoquenessing Creek bed in the West End.The $2.1 million flood control project rerouted the creek in the 1960s. The new channel was constructed to take one-third more water than in the 1954 flood.The city is still working on flood control. Next year the West Cunningham Street and West New Castle Street bridges over Sullivan Run will be widened to reduce the likelihood of flooding.Snyder said flooding was more common before the project.A powerful flood had swept through the city a couple years before Hazel, and another came a decade later.Snyder said she experienced the floods during the 1950s and the 2004 flood from Hurricane Ivan.“The ones in the '50s were worse,” she said, adding that her West New Castle Street home was flooded by Ivan.Like Ivan, Hazel left its mark on other parts of the county, including Renfrew and Harmony.While the storm took its toll, no deaths were attributed directly to the storm or the flood in the county.Nearly 60 people through eight states died because of the hurricane.Reports from the Butler Eagle at the time cited a couple of near misses in the county, including a Harmony man whose car was washed off the road and a Butler man who stood in hip-deep water while attempting to cut power lines to his home.
