Hurricane Ivan remembered
A motorist whose white sedan became stuck in floodwater at Chartiers Run and Plum Run roads in Chartiers Township is rescued by the driver of a pickup truck Sept. 17, 2004, during heavy rain caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan.
Mark Connolly of McB Autosport Motorcars in Bridgeville displays a 1988 Mercedes Benz that was damaged during the flood caused by Hurricane Ivan.
Washington firemen keep traffic to one lane through the deep floodwater on Jefferson Avenue at Wylie Avenue Sept. 17, 2004.
Brenda Barnhart of Washington makes her way through floodwater on Wylie Avenue in Washington to meet her niece’s school bus. Heavy rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ivan caused widespread flooding on Sept. 17, 2004.
The Canonsburg soccer field on West McMurray Road was taken over by ducks. The field, behind Van Eman Pump Station, was flooded by rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ivan.
The water-ruined belongings of families on South Main Street in Houston are piled Thursday along the curb in front of a house that was so badly damaged by flooding spawned by Hurricane Ivan that it was condemned.
A Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster assistance center for flood victims opened in the Washington Mall about 10 days after flooding spawned by rains associated with Hurricane Ivan struck the area in September 2004.
Donna Jo Arthur, 3, rests on a cot at a shelter at the Mt. Pleasant Township fire hall in Hickory on the morning of Sept. 18, 2004. Seated on a cot in the background are Judy Yeager, holding Joshua Arthur Jr., and Nancy Fox. In an infant seat is Christopher Arthur. The residents of Grable Road in Washington stayed at the shelter following heavy flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan.
A Washington police officer lights flares to discourage vehicles from traveling through floodwater on West Chestnut Street on Sept. 17, 2004.
The Pepper family of Washington walks through Washington Estates mobile home park in Canton Township to survey damage to their neighbors’ homes Saturday, Sept. 18, 2004, a day after major flooding, caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan, hit the park.
Somewhat resembling a sidewalk sale, items ruined in flooding spawned by Hurricane Ivan are discarded outside businesses on Pike Street in Houston.
A mobile home is spray-painted in Washington Estates after the flooding in September 2004.
Beth Surich, left, and her roommate, Kristin Dayak Mamula, lost everything when the remnants of Hurricane Ivan swept through the area 10 years ago and sent floodwater into the first floor of their Houston duplex.
Canton Township fire Chief Dave Gump shows where he clung to a tree in the Washington Estates mobile home park in Canton Township after a rescue boat he was aboard capsized during flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan 10 years ago.
Observer-Reporter
In this file photo from 2004, a resident of Rose Street moves to safety after floodwaters from heavy rain created by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan overwhelmed Washington Estates trailer park in Canton Township. Area schools and public works departments were preparing Monday and Tuesday for the remnants of Hurricane Ida to pass through the region.
For Dave Gump, the events of Sept. 17, 2004, are forever etched in his mind.
The Canton Township fire chief clung to a tree 12 to 15 feet above what should have been a road in the Washington Estates mobile home park that was instead a raging river after Chartiers Creek spilled over its banks.
“I remember hanging onto that tree thinking ‘How in the hell am I going to get out of here?'” Gump recalled of that afternoon when the remnants of Hurricane Ivan swept through the area.
For some, lives and businesses never returned to what they were before the remnants of Hurricane Ivan dumped about 6 inches of rain in parts of Washington County.
As the rain intensified, daylight disappeared though the clock still indicated it was afternoon. Calls came into the county 911 dispatch center about minor flooding. Within minutes, reports went from two to 200 flooded basements.
The hurricane that pulverized Florida stalled over Western Pennsylvania, causing creeks in a number of municipalities from Peters and Cecil townships to Canton, Chartiers and Smith townships, and Houston, Canonsburg, McDonald and Burgettstown boroughs to overflow and resulting in flooding that was never seen before in those communities.
The speed and velocity of the flood waters brought with it a destructive force. The path spared many Monongahela Valley communities, with the resources in those areas directed to municipalities not accustomed to flooding.
A ground, already saturated by rainfall from when the remnants of Hurricane Frances passed through two weeks earlier, could not handle the onslaught of Ivan’s rains.
Some children were stranded in schools when roads cut off bus routes. A handful of children in a Chartiers day care center had to be rescued by a road department worker who drove through flooded Route 519 on a bulldozer.
When the damage was tallied, it was in the millions. Destroyed in Washington County were four businesses, 100 mobile homes, 25 single-family homes and one multifamily dwelling. Sustaining major damage were 54 businesses, three mobile homes, 90 single-family homes and eight multifamily residences, Another 74 businesses had minor damage as did nine mobile homes, 240 single-family homes and 21 multiunit residences. Flooding also affected another 102 businesses, 65 mobile homes, 435 single-family residences and seven multifamily units.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency set up locations throughout the county in the days after the storm to meet with those affected by the flooding. FEMA paid out $4.592 million in Washington County, the third highest amount in the state. Allegheny County topped the list with $19 million.
In Burgettstown, Petrucci’s Shop ‘n Save was demolished and rebuilt. Shelley’s Pike Inn in Houston received a double whammy, damaged by floodwaters Sept. 17 and gutted by fire the following day. The spillway on Dutch Fork Lake was damaged, leading to the lake being drained. Problems also were reported at Canonsburg Dam.
Gump and three Charleroi firefighters used a boat to rescue a young mom and her two babies from their mobile home in Washington Estates mobile home park. Gump said the force of the water was moving the trailer. After dropping the family off safely, Gump and the trio attempted to return to rescue more people, but the boat apparently picked up gravel in the engine and wouldn’t start.
Their boat capsized, and Gump found himself underneath it. All were rescued. Gump’s salvation that day was Neil Westcott, who was in his 16-foot fishing boat.
“I saw him and told him to come get me off this tree,” Gump said. “I was ready to go.”
Beth Surich and her roommate, Kristin Dayak Mamula, were among the hundreds whose lost virtually everything when floodwaters inundated the duplex they rented on Main Street in Houston, across from the fire department.
Surich, who now lives in Delray Beach, Fla., and works as a director of training for a Florida restaurant group, was working in Peters Township and was allowed to go home early that day since she lived near a creek. She was home for only about an hour before the floodwater came rushing in.
By the time the rain stopped, the basement of their duplex was filled with water and it was three feet into the first floor.
“We lost everything,” said Surich, who was 22 at the time and just starting out on her own. “Our washer and dryer were in the basement. Most of our belongings were in the coal cellar, The pots and pans in the kitchen were gone.”
While they had renter’s insurance, it did not cover a flood. Surich said the toughest losses were items like her high school yearbooks, photographs, collectibles and Christmas decorations given to her by her grandmother.
The two roommates refused to leave without their pets and convinced firefighters to let their furry friends join them in the rescue boat. Surich was concerned about leaving the animals behind in case of fire because the dryer was sparking in the basement. Sierra, a pit bull mix, now lives with Mamula and her husband in Upper St. Clair. Surich still has their orange tabby cat, Tony.
Neither moved back. Surich said it took her about a year to get back what she lost in the flood.
“I wasn’t making a lot of money,” Surich said. “And I have multiple sclerosis, so there are medical bills, which made it rough.”
Living in Florida since 2007, Surich always has an eye on the sky as well as on the television when storm systems move in. So far, she has escaped the wrath of a hurricane.
Living on top of a hill on Cortez Drive in Canton, Jamie Clark never expected her home would be flooded. But flooded it was, as torrential waters rushed through her yard and swept into her home through basement windows. Everything in the finished basement was ruined.
“I never dreamed that would happen since we lived on top of a hill,” Clark said.
When she went to pick up her daughter, who was a student at Trinity Middle School, at the bus stop, she found the bridge across Chartiers Creek flooded with the bus in the floodwaters. With the help of Canton firefighters, all the students were safely removed.
Clark and her family never made it that night to the rehearsal for the wedding of her stepson, Scott Clark.
“But the next day, the sun was out,” Clark remembered. “It was gorgeous and the floodwaters subsided. It was almost like nothing ever happened.”
Patty Riggans was living in the Washington Estates trailer park off Oak Grove Road when she and her husband decided to check out the flooding near the Washington County Fairgrounds. They encountered an elderly woman upset and desperate to return to her home in the Town and Country Trailer Park off Jefferson Avenue, also in Canton.
“She was upset because everywhere she went, she was turned around,” said Riggans, who knows her way around town after working as a taxi driver. “I asked my husband how much gas he had. We led her up North Main Street and eventually to Goat Hill over to McClay Road.
“She never realized there was a back entrance to the trailer park. She offered us money, but I told her a ‘thank you’ was good enough for us.”
In a Facebook message to the Observer-Reporter, Jay Pettit, who was then 14, recalled being trapped at a friend’s home off Henderson Avenue near the Foodland in Canton and getting a ride to where his mother was waiting by a man in a canoe who was taking people back and forth.
There is one positive that Gump can take from his experiences with Ivan.
“I know all the trouble spots in the township,” he chuckled.