Storm floods Lehigh Valley
Woman killed, many trapped by rain, wind
Isaias, the most potent and deadly tropical system to hit the Lehigh Valley since Sandy, proved to have fast feet and a mighty punch. The former hurricane caused flash flooding, rock slides, power outages and countless rescues of motorists trapped in deep water.
A woman was killed when she drove into high water in the 6300 block of North Main Street in Upper Saucon Township and her vehicle was swept into a creek, the Lehigh County coroner's office said. She was pronounced dead at 4:25 p.m. but the coroner's office had not yet publicly identified her Tuesday night.
The region not only had a torrent to deal with but high winds, which gusted over 50 mph while rain fell at a rate of 1.5 inches per hour at times, sweeping through streets and across fields in blinding sheets.
The rain totals — 4.9 inches at Lehigh Valley International Airport — might have been higher but the storm moved more quickly than expected. It started early morning, gaining momentum around 9 a.m. with heavy rain joined later by high winds, which gusted to 52 mph at 1:15 p.m. By 3 p.m., the sun shone in many areas. Good thing, too, because a slower-moving storm would have been far more destructive, said meteorologist Ed Vallee of Empire Weather.
“We have to be thankful it was as quick as it was,” Vallee said. “When it hit the Carolinas, it interacted with a trough to the west that allowed it to shoot north with the jet stream. That was key.” He judges Isaias the worst such system since Sandy, the deadly superstorm that ravaged the East Coast in October 2012.
“There's nothing else close in my opinion,” Vallee said.
In terms of the volume of water unleashed, Isaias also had
something in common with Hurricane Agnes. That storm pushed the Little Lehigh Creek near Allentown to record levels in 1972, a mark that was surpassed Tuesday, when the Little Lehigh crested at 12.76 feet. A flood warning remains in effect until 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.
As Tuesday dawned, there was little out the window to worry people, with light-to-moderate rain falling. But a couple of hours made all the difference as the storm quickly went from typical to tropical.
Paul Iannelli had no problem driving his wife to an appointment a few miles from their Bethlehem Township home around 10:45 a.m. but those same roads looked different at 12:30 p.m.
“It was a lot harder on the way back,” he said. By then, the water on Freemansburg Avenue was too deep for his sedan to drive through, so Iannelli had to take another route, which turned out to be circuitous as he encountered a second washed-out road before finally arriving home on Ohio Street.
A couple hours later, Patricia Nemeth was waiting for first responders to help her leave her Meadow Avenue home in Palmer Township, after several neighbors had already been driven out in high trucks. The water was a couple of feet deep in her front and back yards and had poured into the basement, leaving about 6 inches on the floor.
“I’ve never had anything like this before,” Nemeth said. “It was like, what in the world?”
Many other people were asking that question, as they watched water pool in and around their homes and turn streets they had only just traversed into rivers. Low-lying areas flooded quickly and emergency crews were called to rescue stranded motorists in all parts of the Lehigh Valley.
“Lehigh Street has turned into the Lehigh River,” Salisbury Township police said on Facebook, posting a photograph of deep water past the South Mall. On Hamilton Street in Allentown’s West End, a current of brown flood water ran though a parking lot around 20th Street, trapping a dog groomer, several dogs, construction workers and others in a building that also was taking in water.
Nancy Steinmetz, of Coopersburg, said the owner of A Walk in the Park Grooming saved her dog from the flood.
“He carried my dog through the waist-high water,” she said. And when he opened the door, flood water rushed out. Around the Lehigh Valley, it was more of the same. At Butztown Road and Easton Avenue in Bethlehem, flooding buckled the pavement and barricades were set up. Creek Road at Goodman Drive near the Lehigh University campus was nearly impassible at one point. And in Lower Saucon Township, there were almost too many street closures to count.
In Slatington, 25 families were evacuated from a Lehigh County Housing Authority apartment complex on North Seventh Street, forced to spend the night in a hotel.
In Kutztown, residents were evacuated from homes along the Saucony Creek. And out of one submerged street came a man paddling a kayak down what had been Rhoades Alley. Flooding also inundated parts of Quakertown, where the National Weather Service reported nearly 2 inches of rain had fallen by 9 a.m. It finished with nearly 6 inches. Cars parked at the Atrium office building on Fifth Street were underwater. Sellersville had one of the highest totals, an unofficial 7.4 inches, according to the weather service.
Calls for vehicle rescues and road closures sounded over emergency scanner broadcasts around 9:45 a.m. in the Nazareth and Bushkill Township areas.
In the early going, tornado warnings were issued for Bucks, Montgomery and parts of Northampton and Monroe counties.
Wind caused significant damage in Doylestown. Photos on Twitter, including one shared by a Bucks County government account, showed part of the roof from the Children’s Village daycare near Doylestown Hospital torn off. In a tweet Tuesday afternoon, Doylestown Health said strong winds caused extensive damage throughout the hospital campus, but no serious injuries were reported. Four children were treated for minor injuries and released.
At the Jersey Shore, tornado sightings were reported at Strathmere. The storm spawned at least 16 tornadoes from North Carolina to New Jersey, including three in Delaware.
As the storm waned, about 25,000 customers were without power in the Lehigh Valley. PPL at one time had more than 12,500 customers without power in Lehigh County and more than 4,600 in Northampton County. Met-Ed reported more than 7,300 without power in the two counties.
For those rescued from the floodwaters or tired from baling water out of basements, Isaias will live in their memories much the same as Irene, which dropped 5 inches in August 2011. But it won’t be as memorable or as devastating as Floyd, which in September 1999 unleashed 7.6 inches of rain on the Lehigh Valley; or Sandy, which brought 80 mph wind gusts and claimed six lives here in October 2012.
Though streets and smaller waterways flooded — including the Little Lehigh and Bushkill creeks — the
Delaware and Lehigh rivers were not expected to approach flood stage.
Isaias made landfall near Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, just after 11 p.m. Monday with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph. It weakened to a tropical storm Tuesday, speeding up the East Coast into New England.
Morning Call reporters Peter Hall, Jon Harris, Binghui Huang, Anthony Salamone, Andrew Scott, Andrew Wagaman and Sarah M. Wojcik and The Associated Press contributed to this story. Morning Call reporter Daniel Patrick Sheehan can be reached at 610-820-6598 or dsheehan@mcall.com.