The Herald, Sharon, PA Published Tuesday, July 29, 2003

Rural road
a washout
after more flooding

By Patrecka F. Adams
Herald Staff Writer

With their Leesburg-Station Road driveway littered with flood debris, Luke Yarian and his wife Jessica had to put their vehicles into four-wheel-drive just to get out Monday morning.

The farm that the Yarians live on was among the properties along the Springfield Township road to be flooded by Sunday's storms, which dumped a few inches of rain on the area over about eight hours.

"Our driveway is full of the road," Mrs. Yarian said. "There's gravel, stone and big hunks of stuff (out) there."

Her husband added that he thought PennDOT trucks moved about 5 tons of shale and other sediments down the road.

"(The storms) ruined about 50 feet of my driveway," he said. "It's bad back here too. There's tremendous runoff."

Yarian added that Sunday's storms only compounded the damage that was already on the road from the storms that rained down on the area July 21 and 22.

"With the priority they give this road, it took them 25 years to get a decent bridge -- it may take another two years to get this street fixed," he said.

Officials from PennDOT couldn't be reached for comment late Monday, but Bill Marceau, PennDOT's assistant county manager, said crews would be continuously working to clear debris from county roads.

Besides his driveway being packed with debris, Yarian said his basement was also flooded with a foot of water when the access drain backed up.

"There was a river everywhere," he said, describing the scene on his street.

Like the Yarians, Clement Lattyak, owner of Homegrown Flowers, said this is the worst flooding he's seen. "I've been down here over 25 years, and it's never been like this," he said.

His wife, Tammy, spent a good part of her afternoon Monday clearing the gravel and debris out of 94-year-old Bill Lewis' front lawn.

Lattyak said Lewis' entire yard was "completely covered with big rocks, gravel and stones, maybe a few feet deep."

Mrs. Lattyak said she tried to do what she could.

"I'm just digging a ditch to get the water to drain off," she said, as she took a break from working in her neighbor's lawn Monday. "The water is constantly coming in from the floor, which is why I decided to dig out back to get the water to drain away from the house."

Lattyak said he reported the drains plugged last week after the big storm, but "the gravel that was there from last week never got cleaned up," he said.

Marceau said Leesburg-Station Road is closed to through traffic due to the washout, which actually collapsed the road in a few places.

"The road will be closed probably the rest of this week and into next week." he said.

----------sty------>


Back to TOP // Herald Local news // Local this day's headlines // Herald Home page



Questions/comments: online@sharonherald.com

Copyright ©2003 The Sharon Herald Co. All rights reserved.
Reproduction or retransmission in any form is prohibited without our permission.

030509