YOUNGWOOD, Pa. — The owner of Mid Atlantic Motors Corp told Channel 11 he is constantly worried about losing his business due to flooding in Youngwood. On Friday, his entire lot was covered with water.
He’s hoping a solution will come soon.
“The water has nowhere to go. It comes out of the manhole covers,” Trevor Hill said. “There’s a low-lying area already, and with the poor drainage we have here, if it rains hard for 30 minutes, we could flood.”
Hill said flooding is a real concern in Youngwood. He said on Friday manhole covers were floating all over the roadway and water was shooting out of the ground.
“I mean, it shoots up out of the air,” Hill said. “There’s obviously something there that’s not functioning properly to take the water away.”
According to State Rep. Eric Nelson, who serves Youngwood, the city started a nearly $1 million grant-funded project in 2020 to help combat the flooding.
“The improvements have prevented a lot of people from getting flooded,” Rep. Eric Nelson said. “There’s just more work to do.”
Nelson said the work focuses on slowing down water upstream and replacing storm pipes. You can currently see phase 2 of the project being completed on Deport Street. But Nelson says phase three has yet to be funded. He said that’s due to ongoing discussion about money at the state level.
“The cities want transportation; we need more water and sewage…have it be an infrastructure agreement versus a recurring fight: more money for SEPTA and PAT transit,” Rep. Nelson said.
According to Nelson, businesses in phase one on Route 119 near Stout’s Carpet Store avoided flooding during Friday’s storms.
Nelson said Youngwood has submitted for phase three funding through smaller projects that will hopefully be approved soon.
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