Flooding, calls for service: Montgomery County sees impacts of storm

NORRISTOWN — Rain pounded the Philadelphia region as storms came through with a powerful force Tuesday, bringing down trees, flooding major waterways and knocking out power to about 3,000 homes in Montgomery County.

Rainfall totals exceeded 4 inches, according to the National Weather Service, with reports indicating 4.28 inches in Conshohocken, 4.11 inches in Norristown and 3.78 inches in King of Prussia. On the low end, 2.02 inches fell in Perkiomenville and 2.10 inches in Bala Cynwyd. Ambler saw 3 inches and Fort Washington got 3.09 inches of rain.

First responders dealing with the storm had an active few hours as 1,744 calls for service were reported from 4 p.m. Tuesday to 8 a.m. Wednesday, according to Todd Stieritz, deputy director for public affairs with the Montgomery County Department of Public Safety.

“It was a countywide storm,” he said.

While Tuesday’s “busiest time” was between 8-9 p.m., when 236 incoming calls were reported, Stieritz said that between 5-10 p.m.,” 992 calls were reported. He noted that five-hour total is “about half (of) what we get in an average 24-hour period.”

Four water rescues were conducted between 9:30-11:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to Stieritz, who said two were in Whitemarsh Township, one in Whitpain Township and another in Upper Moreland Township.

He attributed adequate preparations made to the storm to the relatively low number of vehicle rescues dispatched.

“A good reason that that may not have been higher was public awareness of this event before it was happening. People staying off the roads and recognizing the hazard and not putting themselves at risk,” Stieritz said.

Other calls for service recorded from Tuesday into Wednesday included 210 road obstructions, 78 outdoor electrical fires, 74 hazardous road conditions, 51 vehicle accidents, 39 disabled vehicles, seven building fires, and five fires in woods or fields.

Power outages

Power outages were also a major concern, as PECO spokesperson Greg Smore noted 215,000 customers were impacted throughout Philadelphia, along with Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties. A portion of York County is also serviced by the energy provider. There were around 136,000 customers with power “out at one given time,” Smore said, “at the height of the storm,” which was around 9 p.m. Tuesday.

Smore added that as of late Wednesday morning, 163,000 customers were restored. He added that the energy provider is enlisting “about 1,000 additional field resources… to help restore service from this storm.” As PECO crews continue assessing damage, Smore estimated the “majority of customers impacted by the storm will be restored over the next 24-to-48 hours.”

Montgomery County had about 3,000 reported outages as of late Wednesday morning, according to Smore. In comparison, Smore said other neighboring counties were “hit pretty hard,” citing Chester County’s roughly 30,000 reported outages.

“In terms of Montgomery County, I don’t think that area had as much of an impact as other parts of our region,” Smore said.

“We lucked out in terms of power outages with this particular storm,” Stieritz said. “We were pretty concerned with the strong winds and the soil that is saturated from all of the recent rain that we could have a bunch of trees coming down on electrical lines, and while … we had trees come down … we were fortunate that we didn’t have more power outages.”

“I think what we’re really seeing, and what we were expecting was with a really saturated ground … we’ve had a lot of wet weather recently,” Smore said. “What that does is it kind of loosens up the soil, and makes trees a lot more susceptible to falling, and whenever you have that, that can obviously lead to power outages as well.”

Wind gusts also reached upwards of 45 miles per hour in Lower Moreland Township, according to Stieritz, who noted that a second wind advisory was in effect from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday.

“With the temperatures being a little bit warmer over the past few weeks, it really has led to a hazardous situation with rainstorm after rainstorm,” Stieritz said. “Whereas … if it had snowed yesterday, it gives a lot more time for that water to seep down and be absorbed by the ground with rain. With the soil already being so saturated, a lot of that water just becomes runoff, and that’s what can cause flooding not only on roads and streets and small neighborhood creeks, but in our larger rivers as well.”

Stieritz stressed that the county public safety department “consider(s) flooding a year-round hazard.” The area’s Schuylkill River and Perkiomen Creek were areas of interest as officials looked to localized flooding.

The Schuylkill River reached 16.23 feet in Norristown and is “still rising but appears to be plateauing,” Stieritz said Wednesday. In Pottstown, the river reached 12.17 feet, but was “still rising” and was expected to hit “minor flood stage.” Both portions of the river were expected to crest by 1 p.m. Norristown was expected to reach “minor or moderate flood stage.”

The Perkiomen Creek at Graterford reached 13.26 feet when it crested at 5 a.m. The creek’s portion was reported at “moderate flood stage,” Stieritz said.

“Both waterways likely won’t fall back to ‘normal levels’ before the next rain event arrives on Friday, which could create a compounding effect for additional flooding,” Stieritz said.

‘Wet weather’ not over

Stieritz added the National Weather Service is forecasting strong winds over the weekend amid another storm.

“We’re already looking at additional rain on Friday and Saturday as well as strong winds, a pretty similar event to what we experienced last night and into this morning,” Stieritz said.

With a brief reprieve from the rain, Stieritz urged area residents to stay away from floodwaters as well as any downed wires.

“I think we’d encourage residents to do any sort of clean up that they need to do or repairs if anyone experienced damage prior to Friday because we do expect another storm,” Stieritz said.