A year after 2021 floods, Bucks families recovering as they brace for more extreme weather

Rosemarie Booth learned that her home was underwater and her four children were in danger from a video posted to TikTok.

As a network of hyperactive storms dropped an estimated 10 inches of water on her Bristol Borough street, Booth’s daughter was on social media, livestreaming videos set to music.

Stuck at work in Burlington County, New Jersey, Booth could only watch as videos showed people traversing Pond Street in canoes and brazen drivers became stranded in the rising flood waters outside her home.

“I’m just trying to get home and my mind is racing with thoughts of everything that can go wrong,” she said. "I was shaking. I was terrified."

The nightmare was just beginning.

The July 12 flooding of Bensalem, Bristol Borough and Bristol Township was just one of 10 disastrous events in Bucks County last summer. Floods, tornadoes, and tropical storms tore through the region, causing millions of dollars in damage and leaving many shaken.

A year later, many, like Booth, are still struggling to rebuild their homes.

At the same time, forecasters are expecting another summer of wild weather this year — leading some residents to experience periods of intense anxiety with any warning or alert of extreme storms.

High surface temperatures and warm waters off the U.S. East Coast are forecast to fuel even more extreme weather in the coming summer months, according to meteorologists with the AccuWeather and the National Weather Service. The federal government has also predicted another strong season for hurricanes.

More:Forecasters: Bucks should prepare for another summer of tornadoes, storms and flash floods

Looking back: Lower Bucks hit with historic 100-year flood

For subscribers:6 months after Bensalem flood, homes still being repaired amid efforts to prevent future damage

Bristol mom runs from sinkhole to police station

Booth’s story of losing almost everything sounds like a scene from a summer blockbuster.

With the rain and the many road closures that day, Booth would spend three hours in traffic before reaching home ― a two-story twin with a small porch and postage stamp front garden.

Standing on her porch and sucking down a cigarette, Booth said recently she first spotted a hole in the alleyway beside her home after the storm passed. The hole began to grow. Then, Booth began to hear ominous sounds coming from under the property.

"I’m standing on the porch and I see this growing hole,” Booth recalled. “And I’m sending the video images to my dad on my phone. And my dad is telling me to call the (borough). Then, all of a sudden, there is the whoosh.

“All the water starts going down the hole really fast. And, my dad is on the phone with me. And, he's screaming at me: 'Call the cops!' He’s screaming: 'Call the cops!'"

Booth did not call the cops.

Instead, through flood waters and falling rain, she ran four blocks to the Bristol police station and begged for help. She had four kids and five pets in the house, and no idea what to do.

Eventually, firefighters would arrive at her home and immediately condemn the property Booth shared with her sons Beau, 18, Shane, 10, and Keegan, 7; her daughter Ciera, 20; and their four cats, and a dog.

“We were told we had 15 minutes to get out of the house,” she said. “We had 15 minutes to grab what we could.”

In those few minutes, Booth's world was turned upside down.

Croydon family: 'Nature seemed to be after us'

Two miles away in Bristol Township, Rosa Martinez and her husband Juancarlos Rosario were staring out the front window of their one-story home on Central Avenue.

Outside, the street was flooded and becoming impassable to traffic. Then, Martinez said, she noticed water covering the floors of their finished basement.

The couple said that a hole appeared in the floor of the basement. Water rose out that gash. For hours, they tread through knee-high flood waters in a vain attempt to save valuables, giving up shortly after 1 a.m.

Groundwater was coming out of the hole in the floor and also seemed to be seeping through the walls of the basement. "This wasn't just water," Martinez said. "It was mud and plants and bugs. Nature itself seemed to be after us."

Four-hour deluge hits Levittown

Shortly after noon on July 12, meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, New Jersey, noticed something odd over Lower Bucks County.

A string of potential thunderstorms were positioned like dominoes.

Forecasters had been on alert since the previous evening when radars detected a "mesoscale connective system," a network of thunderstorms more commonly seen over the tropics and the Mediterranean.

Climatologists knew the growing network of storms could contain a significant amount of water.

Extreme summer temperatures draw more moisture into the upper atmosphere, said Sarah Johnson, warning coordinator meteorologist at NWS Mount Holly.

Pockets of warm ocean water off the U.S. East Coast can also lead to more water in the clouds.

All that water was initially forecast to fall over parts of North Jersey or New York City, forecasters said. Instead, the clouds broke over a 10-mile stretch from Bensalem to Tullytown.

The rains started shortly after 2 p.m.

At 2:50 p.m., firefighters made the first water rescues of trapped drivers on Green Lane in Bristol Borough and Cedar Avenue in Croydon.

Ninety minutes later, the National Weather Service reported "waist-high water" in areas of Bensalem, Bristol Borough and Bristol Township.

At the Lafayette Gardens condominium complex in Bensalem an estimated 60 people lost their homes.

Within four hours, areas of Bristol Borough, Croydon and Levittown would receive 10.28 inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service.

The rain was extraordinarily localized, according to forecasters. Neighboring communities such as Langhorne and Feasterville would receive less than 2 inches of precipitation, according to official accounts.

Amazingly, no injuries or fatalities were reported from the flooding.

Recovery in Lower Bucks County

Booth sat recently in Calm Waters coffee shop in Bristol and reflected on her journey over the last year.

"I did want to give up," she said. "But I can’t give up because I have my kids."

Her insurance company would pay for six weeks in a two-bed hotel room for five people, four cats, and the dog.

"Even my little ones were scared to death," she said. "Do you know how hard it was to keep a straight face when your little boy says to you, 'Mommy are we going to go home?'"

Booth's home was not located in a flood plain and she did not have flood insurance to cover the cost of lost appliances, clothing and furniture.

Martinez and her husband were in the same situation. No one told them to expect flooding, so they had no insurance to cover the loss of property nor repairs to their home.

To this day, the couple worries about water in the basement. "We have two humidifiers (in the basement) running 24 hours a day," Rosario said.

Before the storm, the couple refinanced their mortgage, Martinez said. Much of that money went to recovering from the storm.

In response to the July 12 floods, Bucks County joined with the United Way of Bucks County on a program called BUFR ― Bucks United Flood Recovery.

The nonprofit said it is working to assist some homeowners with emergency repairs, mold mitigation, and home reconstruction.

The organization said it has performed work on 34 homes, with 26 properties still in the recovery process.

Unlike the homes damaged during Hurricane Ida, the flash floods of July 12 were not designated as a state or federal emergency. Seventy-eight home loan applications were received by the federal SBA for home loans totaling $3.04 million.

Additional support also was provided ― and remains available ― to some homeowners via the Bucks County Redevelopment Authority.

Pennsylvania state Reps. Tina Davis and K.C. Tomlinson and state Sen. Tommy Tomlinson had secured $1.75 million in state grant money for affected residents last year.

Of that amount, less than half the grant money been allocated, said Jeff Darwak, the authority’s executive director. More than 200 applications were submitted and some $650,000 in assistance has gone out, Darwak said.

Darwak encouraged more people to apply via the authority’s website – www.bcrda.com

Martinez and Rosario are among those waiting on additional repair work with the help of the United Way.

The couple counts themselves lucky as their home was never condemned. "We have to be grateful when so many lost everything," said Martinez.

Booth is back in her home but some of her repair work is on hold until the sinkhole in her alley is fixed.

"I know that it will return to normal," she said. "They keep telling me that it's going to happen. It's just going to take time."

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bucks County residents recovering from 2021 storms as new threats forecast