A FLOOD OF CONCERNS
The putrid smell of spilled beer filled the air in Darby Borough as a beer distributor right next to the Darby Creek closed up shop as a result of flooding from Monday morning’s powerfully quick storms. Two dumpsters filled with ruined product from the Fibber’s Suds & Soda sat in front of the store by MacDade Boulevard and Springfield Road and the smell of wasted beer that trickled out from their containers wafted across the street to another sight of despair across the street: A woman working with a member of the American Red Cross to help her with a home she lost to flooding.
Meanwhile, a road crew was working next to the MacDade Boulevard bridge that runs over the Darby Creek to continue clearing it out of trees, big pieces of forestry and other natural obstructions that flowed downstream and clumped at the bridge. This was the epicenter of flooding for the town as shrubbery and other debris flowed down from other communities who were hit with the storm and collected here. Motors whirred as the crew cut up the hunks of wood to more manageable pieces to dispose of.
It was just one scene that greeted Gov. Tom Wolf on Thursday morning as he came to tour the damage caused by some major flash flooding in Darby and Upper Darby that ruined dozens of cars, more than 100 homes and affected local businesses.
“It’s tragic,” said Wolf in Darby. “These folks have had their lives up-ended by something that is completely beyond their control, and anybody who has been through a flood knows that when you lose things … in the aftermath you’re left with a memory of what might have happened if they weren’t a little bit lucky (to get out).”
Wolf toured destructed areas in Delaware County the day after seeing similar scenes in Bradford County on Wednesday and in Schuylkill County last week. Wolf was accompanied by Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency Director Rick Flinn Jr. on these trips as they were walked through affected areas by local dignitaries and state lawmakers in the respective communities.
Darby Mayor Helen Thomas, Darby Borough Council President Darlene Hill and state Sen. Anthony Williams, D-8 of Philadelphia, explained and showed the remnants of damage to Wolf and Flinn.
“This is a swimming pool,” Williams explained to Wolf about a stretch of Springfield Road between MacDade Boulevard and Chester Pike. That area is particularly noted for having Subscription terms: flood water rising up and submerging businesses located right next to the creek as it did Monday.
When that area floods it closes off a major artery of MacDade Boulevard that provides easy access in and out of the borough to Collingdale, Sharon Hill, Yeadon, and, most critically, Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital on Main Street in Darby.
“Traffic from Baltimore Pike was taking an hour to get down here,” Hill told Wolf. “It took almost a halfhour to get an ambulance to Fourth and Chestnut for a call. Those are minutes that could be live or death.”
Darby Police Chief Robert Smythe confirmed it took 22 minutes for ambulance to respond to that call.
Thomas said she was crying a lot on Monday as events were unfolding.
“Every place we went to in the borough, it was flooded. We had no way out, we had no way in,” she said. “We had to rescue our residents, we had to make sure they were safe. Traffic was horrible, but we gam-