Berks volunteer firefighters teamed up as flood calls poured in

Jul. 14—When nearly everyone was hunkered down — or should have been — last Sunday afternoon while heavy rains pounded most of Berks County, a cohort of dedicated, selfless servants grabbed their waterproof boots and gear and headed out.

Firefighters, most of them volunteers, would spend as many as 12 hours rescuing individuals trapped by floodwater in their homes and vehicles, pumping out basements and addressing an array of other problems.

The Blandon Fire Company, an entirely volunteer department, posted a message early last week to let the community know what it was up against, implore patience from those awaiting water-removal assistance and express gratitude for the assistance it it received from other fire and rescue units.

"In just the last two days we have received 76 calls for help," the post read. "These calls included fires, motor vehicle accidents, hazmats (hazardous material spills), fire alarms, electrical hazards, swift water rescues, structural collapse with rescue, structure investigations, medical calls, and pump details."

The post concluded, "While we are labeled a fire department, you can see fires are only a small part of what we are called upon to do."

Blandon firefighters were involved in seven lifesaving rescues, including a couple swept away by the strong current from flood-swollen Willow Creek.

"We found both victims," Blandon's Chief Dan Miller told the Reading Eagle a few days later. "One victim was hanging by a tree branch. The other was pinned against a farm fence."

The victims, a man and his wife, had been driving on West Walnut Tree Drive when their vehicle stalled in high water. They then tried to walk home.

"They had tried to cross over the West Walnut Tree Drive bridge," Miller said. "As they were doing that, they were swept from the current and downstream toward farmland."

Some areas of Berks got almost a summer's worth of rain in less than three hours. The Fleetwood-Blandon area, for example, got nearly 8 inches, according to some rain gauges.

Running nonstop emergency dispatches can be quite taxing, Miller said. Volunteers put the needs of other first before returning to attend to their own homes that in many cases took on water, Miller said.

"The good thing for us that particular day is it was a Sunday and a lot of volunteers were home," Miller said. "So we were able to provide manpower for our department, but we did use manpower and equipment from multiple other departments coming in to assist us."

The support of other companies, called mutual aid in emergency services parlance, is critical, he said.

Nearby fire companies and rescue units supplied swift-water rescue equipment, high-water vehicles and even boats.

Drama in Muhlenberg

Muhlenberg Fire & Rescue ran 98 calls over a 12-hour period that began about 1 p.m. Sunday, Chief Alex Lupco said.

"Of those 98," he said, "approximately 18 were dispatched as rescues: people trapped in vehicles and high water, people trapped in homes surrounded by water.

"We probably did more rescues, those that were called in as 911 calls. We did street-by-street searches because not everyone is actually able to make a 911 call, either because the system is busy, they lost a phone in water, or the home telephone communication system is compromised."

Muhlenberg Fire & Rescue, which formed a few years ago from the merger of the Temple and Goodwill fire companies, is composed almost entirely of volunteer personnel. Township leaders made the move as a way to maximize equipment and volunteer personnel, the ranks of which have dwindled over the years as with most volunteer companies.

A recent vehicle acquisition, a high-water truck, was of utmost utility.

The 2 1/2 -ton military surplus vehicle — what they refer to in the Army as a "deuce-and-a-half" troop-transport truck — allowed firefighters to go almost anywhere, including the Laurel Run floodplain that was inaccessible to typical fire apparatus.

"We only acquired that vehicle two or three weeks ago," Lupco said, "We got it through the same grant that outfitted 15 personnel in head-to-toe water rescue gear. All that stuff was delivered within the past month."

Lupco said it was gratifying to see the equipment put to good use.

"It truly made a difference in our ability to respond to incidents in a timely manner," he said.

Muhlenberg crews were also part of a dramatic rescue.

Due to fast-moving floodwaters, ground crews were unable to make contact with two residents who had called 911 from their home in the 1800 block of Mount Laurel Avenue.

The incident commander called for a helicopter from the Pennsylvania Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team.

Before the helicopter arrived, ground crews were able to rescue one of the marooned residents. The helicopter met with ground crews and lowered a rescue swimmer tethered to a line to make contact with the other resident, who decided to stay in the home because the danger appeared to have subsided.

Impassable in Exeter

Exeter Township Volunteer Fire Department handled 80 calls throughout July 9, said Chris Jordan, one of the deputy chiefs.

Some of the worst flooding damage occurred along the Antietam Creek in Lower Alsace Township and neighboring Exeter.

"Exeter was basically cut in half by the Antietam Creek," Jordan said. "Key points of the township were impassable.

"What we did is strategically had crews placed at the Reiffton and Stonersville stations."

The Exeter department was formed from a merger of several independent fire companies.

To mount rescues in places like Valley View Park, a mobile home community near the Antietam Valley Recreation Center — where Antietam Creek floodwaters ran like a river just inches below the floors of the trailers — Exeter Fire Department borrowed a deuce-and-a-half from the township road department, Jordan said. Other high-water trucks arrived from elsewhere in the county.

Mutual-aid crews arrived from Shillington to Brecknock Township and as far away as Limerick Township in Montgomery County to provide coverage for other emergencies.

Exeter had an aerial ladder truck to rescue some residents, hydraulically extending the ladder horizontally to form a bridge over the torrent.

The satisfaction of rescuing residents from their homes and vehicles is counterbalanced by the realization that many people are dealing with the aftermath of the devastation, including ruined vehicles and uninsured damages to their homes.

"Obviously, there's some sense of satisfaction but also a sense of knowing that there were many people out there we couldn't help or couldn't help as much as we wanted to," Jordan said. "There were some people we couldn't get to.

"Some of these people were experiencing the worst day of their lives, and we're interacting with them and can't help them as much as we would like to."