Greene County cleaning up after Sunday flood
David Johnson, who lives in a large recreational vehicle near Waynesburg, points to where the water level reached his pickup truck during Sunday morning’s flood in Greene County.
A driver successfully crosses through floodwaters along Route 21 near Waynesburg Sunday morning.
Cars are trapped in floodwaters in Rogersville in this Sunday photo.
Cars are trapped in floodwaters in Rogersville in this Sunday photo.
Flooding is shown at a park in Houston in this Sunday photo.
Flooding is shown at a park in Houston in this Sunday photo.
This Sunday photo shows flooding on Route 21 in Waynesburg.
WAYNESBURG – The repeated honking from a neighbor’s car alarm woke David Johnson up early Sunday morning.
Johnson, 62, who is originally from Alabama and now living temporarily in the Waynesburg area for work, looked out the window of his large recreational vehicle parked at the Raymont RV Park in West Waynesburg and was shocked at what he saw.
“I woke up about 6:30 (a.m.) and when I looked out, the water was about halfway up my truck,” he said. With the water level way above the truck’s exhaust pipe, “there was no way I could start it,” he said.
Water from an overflowing Ten Mile Creek was continuing to rise.
“It came up fast,” Johnson said.
In about 30 minutes, it was inside his recreational vehicle.
“Swimming out wasn’t an option; it was too cold,” Johnson said. A neighbor in a similar predicament had called for help.
“They brought a small boat in and pulled me out,” he said.
The water eventually rose about four feet inside the $85,000 recreational vehicle that Johnson, a welder in the pipeline industry, had moved to Raymont’s about three weeks ago.
Johnson said he certainly didn’t think flooding would be an issue when he moved in.
“It was really a surprise,” he said.
His and several other RVs at the park suffered major water damage. Johnson was at the home Monday morning surveying the damage and starting to clean up.
“I’m going to try to salvage what I can,” he said, adding that he already had talked to his insurance agent. “I’ll just put everything back together and go on.”
The same attitude was expressed at Waynesburg Muffler and Brake on Route 218, just across the Ten Mile Creek bridge from Waynesburg.
Four to five feet of water had filled the shop Sunday morning. Joyce Farabee, and her husband, Tom, who run the shop, their daughter and their sole employee were at the business Monday morning cleaning up.
Joyce Farabee said the couple had not yet determined their loss. However, their daughter, who lives in an apartment in the building, lost everything, she said.
This was the third time the building had been flooded since the Farabees started their business there in 2000, the last occurring in about 2004.
“It couldn’t have come at a worse time of year,” Joyce Farabee said. Around the holidays, business is slow, she said.
“We’ll just keep going,” Joyce Farabee said. “We’ll be all right, we’ve been all right the past couple of times” it has flooded, she said.
The American Red Cross said Monday morning that it was providing disaster relief for five families – nine adults and six children – who were forced to evacuate their homes in the Waynesburg area following the flooding.
“We will continue to monitor the situation and will provide additional assistance as needed,” Red Cross spokesman Dan Tobin said.
Waynesburg-Franklin fire Chief Jeff Marshall said the south side of Waynesburg and eastern section of Elm Street experienced the worst flooding. Several homes had three or four feet of water in their basements that needed to be pumped out by fire crews, he said. Although the flooding was not as bad as events in 2003 and 2004 that were more widespread across the county, Marshall said this one still hit Waynesburg and Franklin Township the hardest.
“It wasn’t as widespread as the past,” Marshall said. “It was more concentrated.”
Several inches of water from the swollen creek flooded the Waynesburg Borough street department’s “compound” on First Street.
“The water got up into the compound, but it really didn’t do any damage,” borough manager Mike Simms said.
Borough crews earlier had moved all the equipment up to the borough parking lot, he said. The basement flooded in one building at the compound, but because of previous flooding there, nothing was stored in the basement, he said. Two borough street department workers spent most of the day moving road barricades and monitoring the water levels, he said.
A team from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency toured the county Monday afternoon with Greene County Emergency Services Director Greg Leathers to see the extent of the flood damage. Rogersville, Spraggs and Brave also experienced flooding, Leathers said, but it was unknown whether the county would be eligible for state or federal disaster relief funds for the flooding.
Fred McMullen, a meteorologist with the weather service in Pittsburgh, said they estimated that more than 2 inches of rain fell across the region Saturday night into Sunday morning. A hydrology gauge along Ten Mile Creek near Mather showed it crested shortly before 6 p.m. Sunday at 17.71 feet, which is considered minor flooding for that area.
The state Department of Transportation on Monday inspected bridges that might have been damaged by high water and debris pushing against them.
“There are no bridge concerns that we are aware of,” PennDOT spokeswoman Valerie Petersen said.
All state highways were open Monday morning and crews were out doing work including cleaning up debris from the roadways and clearing drainage ditches, she said. At one point Sunday, more than a dozen state roads were closed throughout the county, including Route 18, Hargus Creek Road, Aleppo Road, Route 21, Route 19, Muddy Creek Road, Kirby Road and Big Shannon Run.
“We had a good number of roads covered with water,” she said.
One thing that might have contributed to water on some roadways, Petersen said, is litter. With the heavy rains, pop bottles, paper bags and other litter thrown along the road gets washed into drains, clogging grates and catch basins, she said.
“We find so much garbage in grates and catch basins,” she said. “It’s a huge problem.”
While not as impacted as surrounding areas, Washington County experienced some flooding issues Sunday.
“We weren’t as bad as Greene County,” said Washington County Commissioner Larry Maggi. “The creeks were rising and we had some flooded basements, some closed roads, but nothing as bad as Greene.”
Chartiers and Chartiers Run creeks, which run through Houston, caused some problems for the small borough. Mayor James Stubenbordt said several areas were affected, including American Legion Post 902 picnic grounds on West Pike Street and the baseball fields.
Firefighters were called to pump water out of basements, especially around McNutt Street.
The weather service received reports of flooding near Charleroi at the intersection of Bentleyville and Redds Mill roads; in Finleyville at Airport Road and Route 88; and in Amity on Plum Sock Road.
In Monongahela, Park Avenue from West Main Street to Chess Street Extension, was closed until Monday morning because of a rock slide across from Kiblers Automotive.
Regional editor Mike Jones and staff writer Natalie Miller contributed to this report.