Flash flood strikes Zelienople
ZELIENOPLE — Dozens of calls went out Monday to area responders as wind-driven heavy rains toppled trees, downed wires, flooded basements and closed streets in locations around Butler County.
Zelienople was hit the hardest, according to fire officials and the National Weather Service. The borough withstood punishment from power outages and downed wires to flooding in residences and businesses.
In Cranberry, firefighters prepared to send backup to Harmony and Zelienople after getting their coverage area squared away.
“We're gonna be sending a squad up with trash pumps to stand by Harmony station, because Zelienople got it worst,” said Cranberry Fire Chief Dave Mack. “They had like a foot and a half of water running through the streets, and now the basements are filling up … It's a mess. Zelie really got hit hard.”
Before they left, the department removed trees and wires from township roads and responded to a vehicle accident and automated alarms around the township.
Calls from residents in distress in and around the borough began flooding in at around 6:30 p.m. as emergency responders worked to clear roads and pump water from flooded areas and basements.
“(We got) 16 calls,” said Harmony Fire District deputy Fire Chief Rob Reeb. “And those vary: wires down, trees down, flooded basement.”
A few of the calls were for utility poles and power transformers on fire, ignited by searing bolts of lightning.
Later, a dozen or more calls were from residents looking for help with flooding.
Mary Hess, the owner of the Spring Street Cafe, 203 Main St., saw at least 3 feet of water in her basement.
“The whole lower level is underwater,” Hess said. “It's not going to be pretty.”
Hess said the flooding ruined her products, furniture and machines that she had stored in the basement.
The water collected and pooled, extending outside to the back of the building where the alley slopes into a garage door entrance to the basement which is shared between the cafe, One Enchanted Evening bridal store and an apartment building.
Hess said it will take her a month to remove the destroyed items and clean up the muck left behind. She said the water shouldn't affect her ability to open the store.
“If we have electricity, we'll open,” she said. “We'll open tomorrow.”
Bob Householder, a resident of 209 S. Main St., said he had about 1 foot of water in his basement.
“There's a lot of damage, but there's nothing I can do about it,” Householder said. “I'm not worried about me as much as I am about the residents.”
Householder said there is a nearby stream that overflows due to being part of the I-79 watershed.
“All this water arrived from the stream around the corner,” he said.
Householder said he's seen a few different floods hit the area, and deemed it a problematic area. He said this was the worst.
“I never saw anything like this. It's the worst I've ever seen,” Householder said.
Kim Bour, manager at One Enchanted Evening, said the construction on Main Street could also be part of the problem, creating new problems for drainage. She said the store has never seen flooding like this.Bour said the owner of the bridal store was doing paperwork when the water started to come into the building.“The water was like a typhoon,” she said.Bour said there were some dresses that were ruined by the water, but the store already called in the restoration team.“Hopefully, we're up and running in a couple of days,” Hess said. “We'll be fine, it's just a shame.”Then at around 8 p.m., as quickly as it came, the water receded.“It came quickly and it's gone quick,” Reeb said. “Everything's receded.”Responders continued to work pumping water from area basements and repairing power lines in the aftermath.Between 1.5 inches and 2.5 inches of rain fell on southwestern Butler County in a little over an hour's time on Monday evening, said meteorologist Myranda Fullerton at the National Weather Service's Pittsburgh regional office in Coraopolis.Responding to the report of a possible tornado being sighted in northeastern Butler County, Fullerton said the weather service's array of sophisticated equipment did not pick up any evidence of a funnel cloud Monday over the region.Across the county, Penn Power reported outages with 96 customers in Jackson Township and 94 in Lancaster Township.Zelienople was dealing with multiple power outages as well, a borough employee said. Since Zelienople operates its own electric company, buying its power in bulk from Penn Power, its affected customers are not included in the larger utility's outage data.Crews were working to fix the issues, though no estimate was available as to when all of the power would be back on.Lauryn Halahurich and Tom Harrison contributed to this report.
