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Local residents repair damage from storms that blew through area Saturday

By Josh Krysak 3 min read

Standing in the fading rain Saturday, Agnes Trainer, her striped shirt spotted with mud, pushed her digging spade into the soggy ground, allowing more runoff to slip into a trench and away from her flooded Gallatin Avenue home. Meanwhile, on the other side of the house, Agnes’ husband, John, 73, works a push broom in the dim light of his garage and basement, sweeping away the latest round of rain that seeped into the house he has called home for 36 years.

It is a scene all to often repeated for the Uniontown couple.

“This is what you have to do to get by,” Agnes said with a wry smile, looking at her handiwork. “Young or old you have got to do it. When it came, it was like Niagara Falls in Pennsylvania.”

And the Trainers were not alone.

Mother nature slammed the region Saturday, wreaking havoc with damaging wind and rain, as well as heavy lightning that caused some power outages across the district and some fires from struck transformers.

The National Weather Service issued a severe storm warning Saturday afternoon, as well as a flash flood warning throughout the evening after fast-moving storms dumped torrential rains on the county.

Terry Parrish, spokesman for the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh, said reports of flooding in North Union Township, including Brushwood Road along with Gallatin, Edison and West Penn Avenues, joined dozens of reports of deluged basements and homes in the municipality.

Parrish said more than two inches of rain fell in the township in less than one hour, a downpour that left area streams and water runoffs bubbling over their banks.

The wet weather kept area residents and the North Union Volunteer Fire Department busy late into the evening working to clear the excess water.

A spokeswoman for Fayette County 911 said there were no other reports of damage associated with storm across the county, but many calls from North Union, where the storm struck the hardest.

The Uniontown Mall also could not escape the storm’s wrath, as lightening struck the building, blacking out mall shops and shutting down business early Saturday.

In another area of North Union, Bill and Tina Allen were also battling rising waters of an offshoot of Redstone Creek that runs through their backyard.

The couple, who has had issues with water in the past, watched as the heavy rains pushed the swollen water into their backyard and basement, helpless to stop the onslaught.

And as quickly as their basement filled with water, the flooding receded leaving the Allen’s with a soggy house and damaged goods in their basement.

“When it was raining hard, it looked like a tidal wave coming down the street,” Tina said. “We had four inches of water in the basement and the backyard turned into a lake.”

The Allen’s said they have complained to the township supervisors about the creek, which floods during many rains, but to no avail.

Tina said the supervisors are hampered by the state Department of Environmental Protection to solve the Allen’s problem.

Still, she and Bill wish the municipality would address the issue.

“I have been after the township for two years to do something,” Tina said. “The last two years, it has really gotten bad. We need something done.”

Parrish said the region should expect showers on and off throughout the next few days, with the same pattern of hot summer storms brewing.

According to Parrish, the average temperature for the region has been about 10 degrees above normal the last few days, causing the atmosphere to get hot and increasing the likeliness of a late-afternoon thunderstorm.

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