Mahoning Valley residents assess storm damage

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning Valley residents used a brief respite from stormy weather to bail out, patch up and clear away the mess left by Tuesday night’s flooding.

The Boardman and Canfield communities appeared to be hit the hardest.

Canfield Schools administrators said they intend to resume classes today after each of the district’s buildings took damage in Tuesday’s heavy storm.

Maintenance and custodial workers were at district schools late Tuesday and early Wednesday removing water and cleaning. Superintendent Alex Geordan said the district plans to contract with an outside cleaning company “to

really do a complete, thorough cleaning and disinfecting to make sure that we don’t have any problems down the road with mold and everything that comes with

water.”

He said flooding was most severe at the middle school. One room with several computers connected to power outlets that are close to the floor took on 3 to 4 inches of water, he said.

“We’re going to have to wait and make sure everything is dry before we start addressing that,” Geordan said. “We’re expecting we’re going to have some loss.”

There was still standing water around district schools Wednesday morning, but much had receded from the night before, when several fleet buses and vans were underwater, he said. A district mechanic examined one fleet van that was largely submerged but didn’t note any major problems, he said.

Don Hutchison, the Cardinal Joint Fire District chief, requested district fleet vehicles to ferry evacuees from rescue efforts along Indian Run Road, where responders used inflatable rafts Tuesday night to save people trapped by water in their basement-level apartments. They were taken to an American Red Cross shelter at Canfield Presbyterian Church.

“When you hear people are in distress, it doesn’t matter what it takes. You just go all hands on deck and collaborate very well with the city and township and their needs,” Geordan said.

Canfield High School’s media center also took on water, but its weight room was spared any major flooding damage, he said.

Insurance assessors will continue evaluating the district’s claims over the coming weeks, Geordan said.

“I just can’t say enough about our maintenance crew and custodial staff,” he said. “Many of those folks live in this community. They had homes that they left to come take care of our schools. ... I commend them and thank them 100 percent.”

REMEDIATION

Dennis O’Hara, Mahoning County Emergency Management Agency director, said Tuesday’s storm “appears to be a little more severe” than the one in August 2018 that also caused major flooding.

He said the agency has begun compiling data from municipalities along the U.S. Route 224 corridor from Berlin to Poland, where the most damage was reported. What they learn in the coming days could be used to apply for state and federal grant assistance for remediation efforts.

To meet that criteria, the county must show at least 25 homes or businesses have sustained “major” damage or are considered “destroyed,” 40 percent of which must be uninsured. Relief could come in the form of low-interest Small Business Administration loans, he said.

O’Hara urged residents not only to contact their insurance providers but to also report storm damage to the Help Network of Northeast Ohio by calling 211, which can point officials toward the most-affected areas.

Damage assessment teams comprised of municipal and public works officials, first responders and volunteers surveyed Canfield city and township, and several others were expected to be touring Boardman until sundown Wednesday, O’Hara said.

“They’re going door-to-door, down streets,” he said. “Once we compile all this data … then we will send it to the Ohio EMA, and they will reassess all of it and see if we meet the criteria.

“We’ll try to get as much data as we can to see what level we need – state or federal disaster declaration.”

Keith Rogers, Canfield Township administrator, met with Hutchison and county EMA coordinators to survey and assess damage in the hardest-hit areas such as Summit and Abbey roads, Starrs Center and Pebble Beach drives and Tippecanoe Road.

“I had a river run down one of my streets,” he said.

Mike Dockry, Austintown Township administrator, said though standing water was reported along township roads, the municipality was spared any major damage and didn’t receive any reports of sanitary system backup.

“I call it the ‘dynamics of the storm.’ Sometimes, it hits different in one place than another,” he said.

“We’re out right now – because of the forecast – checking the major drainage courses and clearing any blockages that we see,” Dockry said.

Township workers received one call Tuesday about water entering a resident’s home but found the pipe underneath the home was blocked. Water from Pembrook Road also couldn’t drain into a storm pipe along Raccoon Road because it was fully charged, he said.

“This goes back to ’92 and ’93 when we had those first two storms that led to the changes in the county code as far as new buildings,” Dockry said. “That also led us to do some major construction with detention ponds that have really made a big difference in areas.

“I can’t go over [how many] areas we would have had probably a large amount of flooding without those detention ponds that we put in in the nineties and since then.”

Boardman’s mess

Tuesday’s storm flooded multiple parts of Boardman and left the area with road rubble, yard debris and many wet basements.

The township rescued multiple people stranded in cars on South Avenue and Route 224.

Township cleanup crews were out Wednesday clearing debris from roadways.

One spot hit particularly badly was the intersection of Pheasant and Huntington drives.

There, the water got under the road and lifted the pavement, said Dave Fait, road department operator. Chunks of pavement littered the sides of the road and front lawns along the street.

Fait estimated there are about 30 other spots in the township where the water washed away the road.

Nearby, Indian Run rose above the culverts on Huntington.

But Kathryn Mondora, who lives on Huntington, said her home was spared. There is a 20-foot drop from her home to the stream.

She added she hasn’t seen a storm of this magnitude in 20 years.

“If you could’ve been out here last night, you couldn’t hear yourself talk, the water was rushing so loudly,” Mondora said, as she raked debris from her yard Wednesday morning.

Barry Morgan was cleaning debris from his daughter’s yard on Squirrel Hill Drive. The flood waters rose to The Vindicator paper box on their mailbox, he said.

“They had a couple inches of water in the basement. It did come up through the basement drains, but I don’t think it was sewage. I think it was just storm water,” Morgan said.

Township Administrator Jason Loree said the township is seeking state support for storm-water damage. Specifically, Loree and the road department are collecting accounts of storm water infiltrating homes.

“That’s the type of data we need,” Loree said. Flooding in streets or yards that has receded and did not impact property is less crucial, he added.

The sewage plant in Boardman experienced a flow five times the volume of its typical flow, said Bill Coleman, office manager at the Mahoning County Sanitary Engineer’s Office.

Although sewage plants are designed to treat wastewater, during a rain event, storm water infiltrates the wastewater system through sewer manholes and downspouts and footers improperly connected to the waste-treatment system.

“We don’t want to treat clear water,” Coleman said. “It doesn’t need to be treated in a wastewater process.”

Consequently, excess storm water in the wastewater system upsets the balance of the treatment plant and drives up the cost of treatment, Coleman said.

Trumbull County

Though Trumbull County escaped most of the flooding and other damage brought by Tuesday’s severe weather, there were some scary moments for a couple trapped in their vehicle on state Route 46 in Weatherfield Township.

At 4:21 p.m., the Trumbull County 911 Center received calls about a power line that came down, possibly because of a lightning strike involving a tree just north of the Weathersfield Fire Station.

Because of the debris, Route 46 was closed from Salt Springs Road south to the county line.

About 4:30 p.m., the 911 center learned that a high-tension power line was under a car containing two people, Jasmin Simmons and her boyfriend, Jerome Stewart, both of Youngstown, trapping them in the vehicle.

Ohio Edison was asked to respond to the scene, but OE said it might be a while because of other storm-related calls.

Simmons told The Vindicator she and Simmons were traveling north on Route 46 toward Niles when they heard a “loud boom.” Then they saw cars turning around in driveways to head the other way.

After Simmons and Stewart also had pulled into a driveway, they heard a police officer yell “Stop.” The officer said, “There’s a high-tension wire under the car. Do not move. Turn the car off. Don’t even move the key a little bit.” Simmons said they didn’t know they had driven over a power line. It was scary for a little while, she said.

Simmons told officials Stewart has breathing issues but was doing OK and didn’t need an ambulance.

OE arrived about 7:15 p.m., cut the power line, allowing the car to be moved. The road then also reopened to vehicle traffic, according to the Trumbull 911 Center.

Simmons said the damage that caused the problem with the power line apparently came from part of a tree and part of a telephone pole that came down.

Coming next

Eric Wilhelm, chief meteorologist for 21 WFMJ-TV, The Vindicator’s broadcast partner, said between 4 and 41⁄2 inches of rain accumulated after the Tuesday storms in Mahoning County.

Moving forward, he expects showers today with a chance of a thunderstorm or two.

On Friday, however, there will be sunshine and dry weather, he said.