Cecil residents: Construction to blame for floods
Sandbags and other large barriers were put in place by contractors late last week in an effort to prevent floodwater from reaching the homes on Reissing Road in Cecil Township.
Large barriers were put in place by contractors late last week in an effort to prevent flood water from reaching the homes on Reissing Road in Cecil Township.
Ronald Snyder shows the path the water followed early last week, which eventually flooded his garage.
A large sink hole developed outside the residence of Bill Stewart of McDonald as a result of the flooding early last week.
Tom and Joann Guyaux of McDonald are still working to restore their home and surrounding property after the flood damage it sustained early last week.
Tom Guyaux watched water starting to pour over the small dam at the edge of his yard during a storm last week.
Afraid the water would flood their home just outside McDonald, Guyaux’s family rushed outside to build a barricade out of whatever they had lying around.
“Thankfully, me and my son were home,” Guyaux said. “If we weren’t, we would have gotten nailed.”
Guyaux, 48, and neighbors on Reissing Road in Cecil Township faced flooding on their property during heavy rains July 11 when muddy runoff tied to construction of the state Turnpike Commission’s extension of the Southern Beltway cascaded onto their property and into McDonald’s businesss district.
Bob Coblentz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh. said “a lot of late, slow-moving thunderstorms dumped a whole lot of rain over a short period of time” that day.
Turnpike Commission spokesman Carl DeFebo Jr. said contractor Joseph B. Fay Co. “did install the proper erosion and sedimentation controls that are compliant with (state Department of Environmental Protection) regulations” and worked last week to replace control measures washed away in the rain.
“The regulations require that E&S controls be sufficient to handle a two-year storm, and it seems apparent that what we are dealing with here is more significant than that,” DeFebo said in an email.
The whole 13-mile Southern Beltway extension is projected to cost almost $800 million. Work on the 3.2-mile section that will pass near Reissing Road began earlier this year. That part of the project includes realigning Reissing’s junction with Profio Road and whose northern leg will be relocated to become Laurel Hill Road – began earlier this year.
Two doors down from Guyaux, Ronald Snyder, 78, said he’s lived in his house “55 years. Never had trouble – even Hurricane Ivan.”
But since work related to the Turnpike extension began, he’s dealt with runoff three times. The worst was last week, when muddy water swept through his yard and driveway and flooded his two garages.
Snyder blamed a hillside overlooking his property he said was cleared of trees within the last few months. He said workers ground up remnants of the trees after hauling the trunks off, leaving “dirt and chips” loose to wash down from the hillside.
“They won’t admit it, but I know,” he said. “I watched them.”
The Washington County Conservation District inspected the site Friday. Tom Ulrich, agricultural and erosion and sedimentation controls technician with the district, said he submitted an inspection report to the DEP Monday.
DEP spokeswoman Lauren Fraley said the agency is reviewing the report.
Sueli Armstrong, 56, said she spent two sleepless nights after much of her home was flooded as she worried more rain would pour into the home where she lives with her husband, Daniel, 57.
“Before, I lived here for 40 years,” she said. “I loved my house. I felt security in my house,” she said. “Now, it becomes a nightmare for me.”
The couple said a crew finished installing measures – including extending a dam and widening and deepening a creek behind their house – Friday after they complained the measures already in place were inadequate.
Daniel Armstrong said he was “happy with the way my house is protected now,” even though he was “unhappy with the fact that it was reactionary.”
But Tom Guyaux and his wife, Joann, said Monday they feared the dam behind the Armstrongs’ home would cause flooding on their property during a rainfall similar to last week’s.
“Now it has nowhere to go,” he said.