Flash flooding catastrophic for Lackawanna County
Sep. 17—Rapid, relentless, devastating and deadly.
Flash flooding on Sept. 9 in parts of Lackawanna County inundated roads, vehicles and homes and drowned a woman swept away in the deluge — all within a few hours.
The storm that swamped the Abingtons and areas of Scranton quickly overwhelmed motorists and homeowners caught in the paths of raging or rising waters and strained emergency personnel responding to over 500 incidents in several municipalities.
Chinchilla Hose Company Chief Sean Connolly and Assistant Chief Mike Pehonich were among the emergency personnel who endured torrential water flow in South Abington Twp. to help rescue dozens of motorists from stalled vehicles.
The last time severe flash flooding of this sort struck the township was in 2006, when similar road flooding, rescues and infrastructure damage occurred. Still, that event paled in comparison to the Sept. 9 storm that dumped about 6 inches of rain in about 90 minutes, they said.
"Everyone talks about, you know, the 'perfect storm,' " of circumstances commingling to create calamity, Pehonich said. "Six inches of rain in 90 minutes. I've never heard of that. I didn't think it would be possible, but we saw it and we lived it."
With the storm highly localized over the mountainous topography of the Abingtons, gushing stormwater overran creeks and formed new channels spilling down the mountains.
Douglas Pallman, chairman of the Newton Twp. Board of Supervisors and owner of Pallman Farms in South Abington Twp., also said rain gauges there measured almost 6 inches of rain from Saturday's storm. Some gauges in Newton Twp. recorded over 7 inches, Pallman said.
"When you have anywhere from 5 1/2 to 8 inches of rain in an hour and 20 minutes, the water is going to go with the path of least resistance," Pallman said. "That's what we encountered."
Creeks spill over
Other swollen tributaries to the Lackawanna River included Leggetts, Leach, Lindy and Keyser creeks.
Leggetts Creek, which runs from Scott Twp. and through the Notch into North Scranton, picks up flows from Summit Lake Creek and Leach Creek along the way.
The water level of the Lackawanna River below Leggetts Creek spiked 6 feet in 90 minutes, soaring from nearly 2 feet at 7:15 p.m. to nearly 8 feet — which is a minor-to-moderate flood stage — at 8:45 p.m., according to monitoring done by the United States Geological Survey.
Keyser and Lindy creeks coming from Newton and Ransom townships flow down West Mountain into Scranton's Keyser Valley, which had flooding in the North Merrifield Avenue area. Lindy Creek feeds into Keyser Creek near North Merrifield Avenue, and from there Keyser then meanders to the Lackawanna River in Taylor.
After peaking, the Lackawanna River level dropped nearly as precipitously as it rose.
'Fast and furious'
Publicly broadcast emergency communications heard over radio scanners chronicled the emergency responses to flash flooding, described as "fast and furious" by Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti at a post-storm press conference.
Severe thunderstorms first unleashed around 5:30 p.m. in the skies over Waverly, Nicholson and Fleetville, according to a severe thunderstorm warning issued at 5:45 p.m. by the National Weather Service for northwestern Lackawanna County until 6:15 p.m. The alert warned of hazardous, 60 mph wind gusts with quarter-size hail and wind damage to roofs, siding and trees in the areas of Scranton, Blakely, Dickson City, Clarks Summit, Clifford, Clarks Green, Glenburn, Dalton and Factoryville.
"For your protection move to the interior room on the lowest floor of the building. Heavy rainfall is occurring from this storm and may lead to flash flooding. Do not drive your vehicle through flooded roadways," the broadcast alert advised.
Trouble spreads
Problems started with reports of flooded basements and roads under water in the Dalton area, followed by numerous motorists stranded in fast-moving, rapidly rising water elsewhere in the Abingtons.
Vehicles stuck or stalled in high water as traffic backed up on Northern Boulevard in South Abington Twp. and down through the Notch into Scranton, all of which became impassable.
"It just kept going and going and going, and we got call after call after call," Pehonich said. "There were numbers thrown at me that there were roughly 100 cars stranded on Northern Boulevard, from the Notch all the way up to Dunkin' Donuts in Clarks Summit."
Early on during the storm, as its severity quickly became clear, Chinchilla Hose Company called in the Scott Twp. Dive Rescue team to assist with "swift water rescues," because vehicles were stacking up or floating and raging waters would make rescue efforts more difficult.
One emergency communication around 7:15 p.m. described "easily 4-5 feet of water" on a flooded road in the Abingtons.
But dive team members could only get so far by vehicle on inundated roads and had to walk a bit to reach some emergency locations. Going on foot also was treacherous.
"When it was really running, you're unable to walk through there. You'd get swept away," Scott Twp. Dive Rescue Chief Bill White said.
Northern Boulevard at Layton Road was one trouble spot where vehicles stalled, but the raging water made it virtually impossible to undertake rescues with boats and lines, White said.
"To do that, you need to anchor the line, but we didn't have anyone on other side (of a deluged road) and you couldn't get personnel there because of how everything flooded," White said. "It was unpredicted. No one expected it."
In a matter-of-fact tone that belied the harrowing ordeal, one rescuer could see, but could not reach, motorists in a stuck vehicle.
"The water is raging and I can't get to them. I'll get washed away if I try," the responder could be heard saying over a scanner transmission.
Crews in South Abington Twp. also used a bucket loader to pluck people from their flooded vehicles and ferry them to higher ground, where ambulances awaited.
Lives claimed
But tragedy struck on Shady Lane Road, where a couple's car got stuck in a tunnel overrun by Summit Lake Creek that spilled over its bank.
Rising water infiltrated the vehicle, forcing the couple, Virginia Paoloni, 62, and her boyfriend, Ed Mazaleski, 56, to evacuate, but they were both swept away in the raging current. Mazaleski caught hold of a metal pole and watched helplessly as Paoloni swept past him, alive. He tried to grab her, but couldn't reach her. She drowned. He managed to hold on to the pole until he was rescued and was taken to Geisinger Community Medical Center. Mazaleski died Wednesday at the hospital.
Roads become rivers
In North Scranton, Leggetts Creek eventually gave way.
Janet Kelly, a Leggett Street resident for 57 years since the age of 6, has seen the nearby Leggetts Creek rise at times onto her property over the years, but Sept. 9 was the first time her home flooded above the first floor.
"I've never seen anything like it," Kelly said Tuesday. "This time it came up inside. There was probably a foot and a half of water on the first floor."
When a thunderstorm gave way to even heavier rain, Kelly sensed danger.
"I was inside making supper — thunderstorm — no big deal," she said she thought. "Then all of a sudden when that deluge came, I thought I better go out there and see how the creek is."
Leggetts Creek had not yet topped its bank, but Kelly figured she'd better move her car to higher ground over by West Market Street for safekeeping until the water and flooding threat receded.
"When I started to take my car up out of here, it was like a river coming down Leggett Street off of West Market Street," Kelly said. "West Market Street was like a river. Keyser Avenue was like a river."
The water rushing down Leggett Street flooded her property and home. At the same time, Leggetts Creek was rising a short distance away downstream, where Leach Creek dumps into it.
Leggetts Creek "did eventually come over and then it washed out all of the bank," Kelly said.
The flood aftermath on Leggett Street included a pickup truck flipped over onto its roof, a boat and a trailer tangled up in debris and yards and lawns turned into mudscapes.
In Scranton's Keyser Valley, firefighters used a boat to go from home to home to check for trapped residents and rescue them. At one home on North Merrifield Avenue, firefighters put a pet dog in an upstairs room for safekeeping while they continued to check for people, and then returned later to get the dog out.
911 calls kept coming
The storm produced a flood of calls to 911.
As flooding ensued during the night, emergency dispatch communications reflected the sudden and unrelenting nature of the emergency as it unfolded, first in the Abingtons and then in Scranton.
From Saturday at 6 p.m. through Sunday at 2 a.m., the Lackawanna County 911 Center in Jessup received 1,747 calls and created 573 incidents, center director Al Kearney said. On a typical Saturday night, the center receives around 275 to 300 calls and creates an average of 225 incidents.
For dispatchers, the night of Sept. 9, 2023, was "far from ordinary," Kearney said.
As 911 calls kept coming, dispatchers stayed late and others came in early to help handle the volume.
"One thing about dispatchers, when you have those nights, you're working, working and you do what you have to do," Kearney said.
Stressful situations
Other mutual aid responders included firefighters from the Justus, Dickson City, Blakely, Clarks Summit and Olyphant fire departments, the Germania dive team and the Covington, Hughestown and Pennsylvania ambulance services, according to Pehonich. The Scranton Fire Department also tried to respond into South Abington Twp. but could not get up through the Notch where vehicles had backed up, he said.
The adversity was taxing for first responders, both physically and emotionally, though their training kept them calm during the height of the storm.
"Stress-wise, mentally, everybody was under stress. That was probably the most stressful situation I've ever been in," Pehonich said. "As a whole, it just kept getting bigger and bigger, the incident, the farther we got into it. It was definitely something we'll never forget for the rest of our lives."
Connolly added, "Everybody that walked away from there was in awe. I don't think anybody had ever encountered anything of that magnitude, with the water running so bad."
Lessons to learn
The storm caused as-yet-unknown many millions of dollars of damage that likely will take years to recover from. Scranton will explore seeking federal buyouts of flooded homes in flood-prone Keyser Valley, as well as a few on Leggett Street, Cognetti said.
The ferocious storm was an "eye opener" for many local officials, in that it likely won't be the last, and thus holds some lessons for the future, Connolly and Pehonich said.
For example, better preventive and infrastructure maintenance steps might help lessen severe impacts when such disastrous storms arise.
Connolly also envisions fire and rescue departments perhaps employing large vehicles, such as 10-ton dump trucks with higher ground clearances and weight to withstand the powerful force of water, and to use more bucket loaders for vehicle rescues.
Connolly also cautioned that anyone who came into contact with floodwaters to be wary of infections possibly setting in and to disinfect or discard clothing and footwear. That's because floodwaters likely were contaminated. Anyone experiencing infections, redness in areas of cuts or wounds or fevers should not take such symptoms lightly, and should seek medical care.
"This was nature," Connolly said of the storm. "Mother Nature brought this and we can't we can't do anything about Mother Nature, but we have to prepare for it for the next time."
Frank Wilkes Lesnefsky and David Singleton, staff writers, contributed to this article.
Contact the writer:
570-348-9100 x5185;
@jlockwoodTT on Twitter.
Start a dialogue, stay on topic and be civil.
If you don't follow the rules, your comment may be deleted.
User Legend: iconModeratoriconTrusted User
timestribune —Shady Lane Road, 7:35 p.m.
timestribune —Boat rescue on North Merrifield Avenue
timestribune —Scranton firefighters request equipment
timestribune —McDade Expressway flooding
timestribune —Vehicles under water on North Merrifield Avenue
timestribune —Shady Lane Road, 7:38 p.m.
timestribune —Shady Lane Road, 7:52 p.m.
timestribune —Notch flooded
timestribune —Notch shut down
timestribune —Scranton street collapse
