timesthursday

Disaster declared in Aliquippa

By: Bob Bauder, Times Staff

07/05/2007

Flood waters cover Franklin Avenue about 2:30pm Thursday.

ALIQUIPPA - A cloudburst late Thursday morning sent a torrent of water rushing through narrow Woodlawn Valley in downtown Aliquippa, inundating homes and storefronts on Franklin Avenue and displacing hundreds of residents.

Literally every home, storefront and business lining the avenue was affected by the flood, including the city building, police station and historic B.F. Jones Memorial Library.

The water struck so fast and hard that it stranded people in vehicles and buildings, peeled sections of asphalt from the street, swept cars from their parking spots and popped heavy steel manhole covers.

Several people had to be rescued by boats, but no one was injured, according to Aliquippa police.

"It was like a whole river coming down the street," said John Marchman of Aliquippa. "It was just tremendous. You had to see it to believe it. This was like New Orleans."

Aliquippa Mayor Anthony Battalini said the volume of water pouring into the valley from several creeks overflowed a storm culvert running the length of Franklin Avenue and caused the deluge.

"It just couldn't handle all the water," Battalini said.

The Beaver County Commissioners declared a state of emergency in Aliquippa, and emergency responders from across the region poured into the battered town Thursday afternoon.

The lower ends of Franklin Avenue and parallel streets, Sheffield Avenue and Elm Alley, were under waist-high water for much of the afternoon. As it slowly subsided, the street turned into a brown, slippery quagmire.

A disaster team from Beaver County arrived Thursday afternoon to assess damages, and city officials - working from the Aliquippa Fire Department on higher ground - said it was too early to estimate the toll.

From the looks of things, however, costs will run high.

The subsiding water brought residents and business owners into the street to begin a cleanup that promises to take days. They universally agreed that it was devastation that the former steel town could ill afford.

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Brenda Lee of Moon Township, owner of Miajah's hair salon and beauty supply shop, was hit by a triple whammy. Water came in her back door from Elm Alley, through the front from Franklin Avenue and through her roof, which picked Thursday to spring a leak.

"I'm flooded from the back all the way to the front," she said, displaying the mud-soaked floor of her shop.

She said her basement was flooded and feared that her furnace and hot water heater were ruined.

"This is my only means of income," she said. "I've got two kids in college, and I don't know what I'm going to do. All this floor's got to come up. All that carpet has to come up. The ceiling. The furnace. The hot water. This is devastation."

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Payton Riggins, owner of Payton's Barber Shop on Franklin Avenue said he was forced to leave through his back door and seek high ground after water began running over his stoop around noon.

Someone called him on his cell phone to say that his 1992 Nissan was floating down the street. He found the car, filled with water, several doors down from where it was parked.

"The car's ruined," he said, "but I have insurance."

Riggins wasn't alone. Dozens of cars were damaged by the flood.

Constance Phillips of Aliquippa said she saw her 1996 Chevrolet Cavalier drift down the street, go up on the sidewalk and turn completely around.

"It was unbelievable," she said.

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A dive team from Beaver Falls had to rescue elderly Frank and Irma DeFerrari from their landmark Franklin Sporting Goods and billiard parlor.

Irma said the water came up so fast that they didn't have time to get out. She said she stood on a box to avoid the water.

"It was like 2 feet deep at the door," she said.

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Mary K. Neri, owner of Wauro's Tavern, said she was afraid her business, started more than 50 years ago by her father, would be ruined. She was in the process of renovating and had just finished remodeling the kitchen in the basement.

The basement was filled with water Thursday afternoon.

"It doesn't look too good," she said. "Who buys flood insurance at this elevation?"

A lifelong resident of Aliquippa, Neri said she could not recall a flood of such magnitude.

"The bar has never closed in 50 years," she said. "This may do us in."

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The Rev. Marvin Moreland, pastor of Deliverance Temple Ministries and president of ROOTS Inc., both located in a former Mellon Bank building known as Renaissance Place, said the basement of his building was also flooded.

Water blew the front door off its hinges and inundated the main floor. He said mud covered the floor, but he was mainly worried about damage in the basement.

"The first thing we have to do is get that water out of there," he said.

Mayor Battalini said Aliquippa firefighters would be pumping out basements later Thursday evening.

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Jake Cox, a maintenance man for the Aliquippa Alliance for Unity and Development, was using a squeegee to push mud and water from the first floor of the Broadcast Street Cafe, owned by the alliance.

He said the flood stranded children and staff inside.

"All of a sudden - boom - it just came," he said. "Everything just backed up."

Belinda Walker, one of the staff, said the cafe was used for educational classes and as an entertainment venue.

"This place was expected to be rented Saturday for a wedding," she said. "I don't know what's going to happen now."

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Wayne Uber, a volunteer at the Uncommon Grounds cafe, which is operated by an arm of the Episcopal Church, said water damaged his car and filled the basement of the building, ruining most of the inventory.

"It was up to the top of my hood and really moving," he said.

Bob Bauder can be reached online at bbauder@timesonline.com.