Water, water everywhere following June 30 storm

Eight days after a mid-afternoon thunderstorm caused wind damage across portions of Meadville, another powerful summer thunderstorm — this time packing torrential rains — struck around 4 p.m., Thursday, June 30 and caused widespread flooding of some buildings and streets.

“I had right at 4-and-a-half inches (of rain) in my gauge in Bude,” Franklin County Emergency Management Agency Director Mark Thornton said. “Someone right behind Sprint Mart said they had 7-and-a-half (inches). I know (the rain) came in two rounds.”

At the height of the weather event in Meadville, stormwater runoff became too much for some curbside drains to handle and portions of Main Street between Edison and Walnut streets as well as Walnut Street from Main to Second Street literally became swamped.

In addition, water cascaded toward the center of town from near the Meadville Baptist Church and overran sidewalks along the north side of Main Street.

On Edison Street, runoff flowed over a block retaining wall behind Franklin Telephone Co.

Meanwhile, the offices of Rural Rapid Response ambulance service at the corner of Walnut and Second streets took on between six and eight inches of water.

RRR owner Tyler Blalock said water rolled under doors and flooded his office’s kitchen, bathrooms and an area where his staff rests during their shifts.

Those present when the flooding started hurriedly removed items from the floor in hopes of preventing them from being damaged.

“It was one of the worst incidents that we’ve had in terms of flooding at this location,” Blalock said. “We tried to keep the water out, but it was coming with such force that it was impossible to keep it from coming into the building.”

One video recording made by those at RRR showed waters rushing over the threshold of a door carrying debris into the building.

Justin Lloyd said he frantically worked with a push broom to try to divert the floodwater from making its way inside the ambulance service’s offices, but it was a situation where there was more water than could be handled by him or anyone else.

“The water, at one point, got to be at least shin deep and just kept coming,” Lloyd said. “It was too much water and it went where it wanted to go because there was nothing to stop it.”

RRR personnel used a measuring stick to document how deep the water actually got — with one measurement at least 7-1/2 inches on the northwest side of the building.

Water marks could easily be seen throughout the interior and exterior of the RRR offices.

Staffers were working to remove as much water as they could as the rains began to slow, and were bringing in a water vacuum to try to lessen the damage to the building.

Across the street at Sullivan’s Kitchen and Produce, the previous week’s storm that tore off the building’s front porch led to water getting into the business on Thursday due to existing roof damage.

That business also reported water getting into its restrooms from a leak.

Further up Walnut Street, flood waters topped the sidewalk in front of the Franklin County Extension Service office and AJFC Community Action Agency.

Along Main Street, several business saw flood waters enter their buildings, including Meadville Nutrition, G.L. Jones Industrial, Meadville Fitness and the former Toad House location.

Late Thursday, property owners were assessing the level of damage to their storefronts with many using water vacuums to remove excess moisture from their locales.

The Franklin County School District’s Special Services office on the high school campus also saw stormwater enter that building with clean-up of the damage taking place on Friday.

“There was also a leak in the courthouse records room, which has a floor up above it so we haven’t figured out where that came from,” Thornton said. “It came through the widows where the deputies’ offices are up there, maybe, and ran down the walls and got the floor wet.

“It cracked the ceiling all the way across. You can see a little thin crack from the outside wall to the hall wall, about midway between the two doors. They caught it in time, though, and took the buckets in there to catch it and moved the books.

“But it was coming through the walls in the (courthouse) basement; it was coming from the ground up through the drain pipe. In one room, it was coming through the front wall into the basement.”

Thornton, Meadville Police and the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department went to check on those impacted by the flood waters, but reported no injuries as a result of the storm.

“Dollar-wise, I don’t have a clue how much damage was caused right now because people were still looking,” Thornton added.

Authorities also worked to slow traffic as streets quickly became inundated making travel particularly dangerous.

In nearby Bude, flood waters overwhelmed storm ditches throughout the town, but Public Works employee Elvia Brown said that problems were minimal as workers toured streets to see how runoff was being directed away from residential areas.

Waters covered a portion of First Street and Railroad Avenue for a short time with some low-lying areas seeing large volumes of standing water that came close to some houses and outbuildings, but no major damage was reported.

“I hadn’t heard anybody say if anything flooded on the river, campgrounds or anything, but on Thursday night I rode down to the Homochitto River and it was almost bank to bank,” Thornton continued. “Rollins Creek between Hilltop and Gas Lane (in Bude) was going down, so that was a good sign.”

Those same heavy thunderstorms also produced large amounts of rain in the Kirby area west of Meadville, with no damages immediately reported.

Thornton said he had not received any reports of damage from Roxie or other outlying areas of the county.