SOUTH STRABANE TOWNSHIP, Pa. — People in Washington County are cleaning up after heavy rain caused creeks to overflow their banks.
Neighbors say this is not the first time they have had to deal with it.
A waterfall came into Stu Shultz’s backyard after heavy rains on Saturday. His home and his family’s business next door were flooded, not for the first time.
“It was so bad we had to clear out our office. It destroyed our parking lot. It was actually worse last year,” Shultz said.
The top of that waterfall is the South Strabane Fire Department’s parking lot, which collapsed in the storm.
Drone 11 flew over the massive sinkhole. It opened while all firefighters were in training, and the fire hall was filled with 80 people playing bingo.
“We got a call from one of our members here saying the parking lot had just collapsed. The station was taking on water here, and they were beginning evacuation of the station,” Acting South Strabane Fire Chief Jason Brown said.
This comes about a year after a sinkhole opened in the plaza up the street.
Neighbors feared it would happen again.
State Senator Camera Bartolotta joined the acting chief, engineers and other local leaders for a four-hour meeting today, working to find the funding to fix the sinkhole.
“I mean, Saturday when this happened, there was a lake at Big Lots. It was just swirling... nowhere for it to go. If this happens again, I mean, the fire hall might collapse, and who knows what happens here,” Bartolotta said. “Seeing this on social media again, twice and big, twice as deep — look, we gotta get something done.”
The bigger, costlier problem is flooding from Catfish Creek. A tributary of Chartiers Creek.
The Army Corps of Engineers said Catfish Creek is included in their 277-square-mile study aimed at finding a permanent fix to the flooding. Residents and leaders say it can’t come soon enough.
“We are going to get it done. We are going to find a way, see where we can start — federal, state, county. That’s our goal,” Bartolotta said.
The fire department is still operating. Fixing this hole is expected to cost about $700,000.
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