STORM UPDATE | Cleanup efforts in full swing

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

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 Township and Canfield communities appeared top be hardest-hit.

Canfield Local Schools administrators said they intend to resume classes Thursday 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 three to four 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 is still standing water around district schools, but much has receded from Tuesday night, 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.

Cardinal Joint Fire District Chief Don Hutchison 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 are expected to arrive at the school later today and 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.”

Canfield Township Administrator Keith Rogers was meeting at noon with Hutchison and Mahoning County Emergency Management Agency coordinators to survey and assess damages in the hardest-hit areas like Summit and Abbey roads, Starrs Center and Pebble Beach drives and Tippecanoe Road.

“It’s mostly receded. I had a river run down one of my streets,” he said.

Dennis O’Hara, county EMA director, said the agency is 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.

“We’re getting ready to form damage assessment teams,” he said. “It’s not going to be done today. This is going to be a few-days process to gather this data.”

The National Weather Service Cleveland office reported Austintown Township took on the most rainfall within a six-hour period in the area Tuesday evening: 2.83 inches.

Township Administrator Mike Dockry 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 Township’s cleanup crews were out Wednesday morning clearing debris from roadways after Tuesday’s storm flooded multiple parts of the township.

Barry Morgan was at his daughter’s house off on Squirrel Hill Drive cleaning up. 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 it wasn’t sewage,” Morgan said.

A road department crew is making repairs at the intersection of Pheasant Drive and Huntington Drive.

The water got under the road and lifted the pavement, said operator Dave Fait.

He estimated that there about 30 other spots in town where this occurred.

Indian Run rose above the culverts on Huntington Drive.

Kathryn Mondora was raking debris from her front yard on Huntington Drive.

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

The water was rushing so loudly “you couldn’t hear yourself think.”

Mill Creek Golf Course, 1 West Golf Drive, was closed Wednesday and will remain closed today in the aftermath.

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 Ohio Edison 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 also 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.

Ohio Edison 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.

Here’s what the National Weather Service office in Cleveland is telling us about weather for the remainder of our work week:

Thursday will have showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 3 p.m. Patchy fog before 7 a.m. High near 71. Calm wind becoming southwest 5 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90 percent. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

Thursday night there is a chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 8pm. Cloudy, then gradually becoming partly cloudy, with a low around 54. West wind 5 to 7 mph becoming north after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 30 percent. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Friday looks mostly sunny, finally, with a high near 69. Friday night is mostly clear, with a low around 56.