Paul Sebasovich was cleaning “a little bit of water” in the basement of his Lower Paxton Twp. home Saturday night when he saw brown water seeping through the wall.
“I heard a couple pops and saw the blocks moving a little bit, and I got up on the steps, and all of a sudden, everything went, like a dam breaking,” said the Curvin Road resident.
Sebasovich’s family is one of two forced from their homes by a deluge — three to seven inches of rain dropped overnight Saturday and into Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
In Susquehanna and Lower Paxton townships, the storm closed roads and stranded motorists.
“We got clobbered,” said Lower Paxton Twp. Manager George Wolfe.
Overloaded storm sewers “exploded” and caused Beaver and Goose Valley roads to collapse, Wolfe said. Compton and Colonial Club roads, closed due to flooding during the storm, have reopened, but Beaver and Goose Valley will remain closed for emergency repairs and will possibly reopen this week, he said.
Lower Paxton storm sewers were inspected recently “because of the significant rain we had this past spring,” Wolfe said. “The storms we’ve been having lately, if you didn’t know it, you’d think they were 10-year storms, 100-years storms, but they’re all coming in the last three or four months.”
Sebasovich said that he and his wife are staying with their daughter, and their son is staying with neighbors, while crews shore up the crumbled basement wall.
“That night, we stayed in our truck, because we have two beagles,” he said.
Hornung’s Hardware store “helped a lot” by loaning a loader and trailer, but without flood coverage, insurance won’t cover the damage, Sebasovich said.
Also in Lower Paxton Twp., another buckling basement chased a family of three adults and one child from their Heather Road home, said Nikki Otto of the American Red Cross of Southcentral Pennsylvania. The Red Cross found housing for them through Monday night and will reassess today.
“They still weren’t allowed back on the property,” Otto said. “There was still damage.”
In Susquehanna Twp., the flooded Doehne, Paxton Church, Walker Mill and Roberts Valley roads were closed Saturday night but reopened by Sunday morning, said township Manager Gary Myers. Some patching and shoulder repairs are unde rway, but “it appears we had no real structural damage,” he said.
Sergey Filatov has lived in the Mountaindale development of Susquehanna Twp. for 10 years, but said he never saw anything like the deluge that sent several inches of water coursing into his garage and tearing out landscaping. A drain meant to channel stormwater toward a creek apparently failed, he said.
The development, built on the side of the mountains that parallel Linglestown Road, is no stranger to flash-flooding issues during heavy storms.
The Susquehanna Twp. highway crew is spending this week “checking culverts and cleaning off every inlet in the township, and probably pulling covers and shoveling them out,” Myers said.
Wolfe said he hasn’t had a chance to assess the cost of storm cleanup and repairs. Myers said the storm shouldn’t cost the township any more than highway crew overtime Saturday and Sunday.
Heavy showers on Friday made the weather pleasant in the city but resulted in heavy waterlogging on the roads and caused traffic jams. The rain started in the morning hours causing waterlogging at 50 places in the city. Traffic snarls
were reported on many stretches as commuters were stranded in long queue of vehicles for hours.
In 24 hours till Friday evening, the weather department measured 79.6 mm rain. The major share was between 5.30 pm on Thursday and 8.30 am Friday when the city received 69.7 mm.
The MCD control room received complaints of building collapse from Anand Parbat, Nanakpura, Haidarpur and Ali Vihar. Three people, including a child, were reportedly injured in the incidents.
The worst-affected areas were Badarpur, Ashram, Prahladpur, Mathura Road, Lakshmi Nagar, Ganesh Nagar, Kashmere Gate, ITO and Vikas Marg.
As peak hour traffic crawled, the police appealed to motorists to drive safely.
The waterlogged streets slowed down traffic in several areas. Traffic was hit on Badarpur-Ashram stretch, ITO, Mathura Road, Bhagwan Das Road crossing, Anand Parbat to Rampura, Moti Nagar, Zakhira, Janakpuri, Nizamuddin, Jangpura, South Extension and Saket. The stretch from Moti Nagar to Zakhira was partially damaged due to waterlogging.
The traffic police had to sweat in the rains in regulating traffic in the peak hours. The incessant rain exposed the preparations of the government and the failure of authorities in desilting drains before monsoon.
However, the showers cooled the city. The minimum temperature on Friday was recorded at 25.5 degree Celsius, which is one degree below normal. The maximum temperature on Friday was recorded at 30.1º Celsius.
The weather department has predicted thundershowers on Saturday.
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