Flood Cleanup Continues Across the Region
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Residents in Darby, Delaware County, whose homes and businesses were flooded by Thursday night's storm are still cleaning up the damage.
"We honestly don't know how much damage we have to our belongings and everything. We sure weren't worrying about bringing anything with us because we were just trying to get out the best way we could" said one flooding victim.
Some residents say they just feel lucky to be alive.
"The water, it was so scary just looking out from the porch. I've never seen anything like that in person, only on the news, so it was like really scary."
The hundred or so people who spent the night at a Red Cross shelter were allowed to return home when the waters receded; whether their homes are livable right now is another issue altogether.
And, in Manayunk, instead of serving drinks, employees at Mad River spent Friday night pumping water out of the basement.:
"We're disappointed but we're just happy, in the grand scheme of things it could have been a lot worse."
Co-owner Mike Mastallone says about three feet of water and mud came in but, with ample warning, they'd moved most stuff up to the second floor.:
"Down below we have a concrete floor, so we just kind of got a fire hose and sprayed it all out of here. Inside damage is minimal, luckily."
Emergency officials say most of the city escaped the kind of damage they'd feared. The Schuylkill crested at 13 feet, flooding the drives. Joan Przybylowicz with Philadelphia's Emergency Operations Center says it could have been worse:
"Certainly, for the people that were affected, it's an emergency for them. But from a city perspective, it wasn't as severe as in the 1999 Hurricane Floyd incident."
The high water level forced postponement of Saturday's International Dragon Boat festival. Some youth sports were cancelled too, because of damage to city athletic fields.
In Montgomery County, state police say a 55-year-old woman died early Friday morning after water swept her car off the road in Skippack Township. They say it was dark and she probably couldn't see that Stump Hall Road was flooded.
And in Delaware, a section of road where a bridge collapsed in Wilmington, won't be passable for at least another month. That's according to residents who live in the three apartment complexes affected by the gapping hole.
"I heard at least a month, two months probably," said area resident Thomas Johnson.
"I couldn't believe it," said Renee Smallwood. "I thought people may have been exaggerating until I saw it."
Upwards of 800 people now have to use a long narrow temporary pathway, off of Edgemore Road near Brandywine Avenue.
Heavy rain and a rising flood waters from ShellPot Creek is what caused the privately owned bridge to break on Friday. DELDOT's North District Manager of Operations, Bill Thatcher says neighbors will have to use the alternate route for a few days until they finish paving the temporary access road.
Reported By: Hadas Kuznits, Pat Loeb, Mike Dougherty, KYW Newsradio; Jericka Duncan, CBS3
