Floodwater gushed from a manhole at the intersection of Hanna and Houston streets in Washington, Pennsylvania on Saturday, forcing crews to rope off part of Hanna Street as fast-moving runoff swamped roads across Washington and Allegheny counties. Along Houston Street, homeowners waded out to clean up around properties that had flooded yet again, with one resident calling the situation simply “despicable.”
The scene was especially harrowing for one Houston Street family, whose green van stalled in the rising water with a 6-year-old niece and another family member still inside, according to WPXI. An unidentified man pulled the child out through the vehicle’s window as water crept toward the second step of the woman’s porch. The same report notes the woman now has three vehicles that won’t start because of flood damage, on top of one working car, and that her family had previously lost personal belongings to earlier flooding this summer.
Neighbors along Houston Street believe clogged storm drains are worsening a flooding problem that has repeatedly hit the area all season, and they’re hoping for drainage-system improvements to finally break the cycle, the station’s report adds. City officials, however, point to a much bigger storm system driving Saturday’s chaos: Washington Mayor JoJo Burgess declared a state of emergency on Saturday after severe late-afternoon downpours swamped city streets and threatened resident safety.
A Storm That Overwhelmed Creeks and Culverts
That storm overwhelmed Catfish Creek, which overflowed its banks near Cameron Stadium in Washington, inundating nearby properties and causing stormwater drains at Jefferson and Wylie avenues to spout water under intense pressure, according to the Observer-Reporter…