Heavy rain causes landslides; Routes 837 and 906 remain closed
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
A second landslide occurred on Route 837 between Coal Bluff Road and the Norfolk Southern Shire Oaks Yard late morning Monday.
A second landslide occurred on Route 837 between Coal Bluff Road and the Norfolk Southern Shire Oaks Yard late morning Monday.
Photo courtesy of Elrama Volunteer Fire Department
Photo courtesy of Elrama Volunteer Fire Department
This truck ran into a landslide on Route 837 in Union Township.
A hillside collapsed on a tractor-trailer on Route 837 in Union Township Sunday night after hours of rain caused emergency situations across the Mon Valley.
Lenny Bailey, fire chief of Elrama Volunteer Fire Company, said the driver was in the 800 block of the road, between Kennedy Road and Coal Bluff Road, about 11:30 p.m., when the slide occurred.
“The landslide came down right in front of him, and he slammed right into it,” Bailey said. “He was shaken up a little bit, but he walked away. He’s lucky he didn’t get killed.”
Bailey said the landslide also struck a train that had been parked on Norfolk Southern tracks that run parallel to the road, but no injuries occurred. He said crews had to cut trees away in order to pull the truck out.
Photo courtesy of Elrama Volunteer Fire Department
Part of the landslide on Route 837 in Union Township
“Telephone and utility poles were down,” Bailey said. “It was a pretty big mess.”
A second, small slide occurred mid-morning Monday about a mile from the first one.
The slide was one of about 25 weather-related calls Elrama firefighters responded to between 6 p.m. Sunday and 3 a.m. Monday morning, Bailey said. The calls were for flooded basements, crashes related to “people driving too fast in the water,” and drivers getting stuck on roads that were closed for flooding.
One of those calls came in at 1 a.m. for a driver trapped on the roof of his car on Courtney Hill Road in Union Township. Bailey said a man in a sedan drove past road closed signs and into the floodwaters. His car became submerged.
“He was hanging onto the roof until we got there,” Bailey said.
He said he called for mutual aid from swift water teams in Donora and Elizabeth Borough, but his firefighters were able to bring the man back to safety. He said members of his crew waded out to the car with life vests and ropes tied to them.
Photo courtesy of Elrama Volunteer Fire Department
Photo courtesy of Elrama Volunteer Fire Department
Emergency personnel work at the scene where a tractor-trailer ran into a landslide on Route 837 in Union Township.
“The guys were up to about their chests,” he said. “Once they were done you couldn’t even see the roof of the car.”
In Westmoreland County, a number of roads were closed, including Route 906 in both directions between Vance Dei Cas Highway, and Turkey Hollow Road in Rostraver Township due to a landslide in the roadway.
Ofsanik said that flooding caused the slide on Route 906, but that no vehicles were involved. He said crews are still working to assess if more land will slide from that cliff.
“That is a concern – that there could be more debris,” he said. “Our crews are trying to clean up, but if more is going to come down, that’s a safety concern for us.”
Ofsanik said both Routes 906 and 837 will be closed for several days due to the slides and the “instability of the slopes.”
“Maintenance personnel are assessing the stability of the slopes and working to open the roadways as soon as possible,” he said in an email. “The safety of the motoring public is PennDOT’s highest priority. Crews are currently setting up posted detours for both closures.”
According to the National Weather Service, Pittsburgh broke a record for a 24-hour rainfall near the airport. In 1930, the record for June 10 was set at 1.89 inches. The new record set for the 24-hour period, which ended at 7 a.m. Monday, was 2.03 inches, according to Lee Hendricks, a meteorologist for the NWS in Pittsburgh.
“We did have a lot of rain across the region,” he said.
Hendricks said Connellsville in Fayette County had 3.09 inches in that period. He said in Washington County, no known records were broken, but the Charleroi area had about 2.73 inches of rain, Gastonville had 2.24, and Donora had about 2.08.