After a temperature swing of nearly 50 degrees in just a few days, rain came, and eventually, flood waters in multiple counties across Southwestern

Pennsylvania.

Many residents across Washington and Greene counties started the day Jan. 12 with water in basements, while local and state roadcrews battled flooded roads.

Frozen ground, according to Gregory Leathers, director of Greene County Emergency Management Agency, prevented rainfall from proper absorption.

“Basically, what you have is frozen ground [in January],” Leathers said. “The rain can’t soak in anywhere [so it] goes straight to the low spot.”

Leathers said it is generally discouraged to build structures in the areas susceptible to flood waters.

“We encourage people not to put in any structures in the [low] areas,” Leathers said. “But we can’t control where there is a low spot unfortunately.”

According to Leathers, during the day, two major highways, Route 21 and Route 18, experienced closures due to the water. Various other local roads were closed and re-opened throughout the day as well.

Valerie Petersen, spokeswomen for Pennsylvania Department of Transportation District 12, said by 9:30 a.m., there were six state roads closed; but the unpredictability of flood waters made a total estimate of closures through the day difficult.

“The thing with flooding is a road can be covered with water in an instant,” Petersen said. “It can increase dramatically in an instant and just as quickly Mother Nature can take it away. Sometimes there were flooded roads that were closed for many hours and then there were other times where roads were flooded and closed for just blocks of four to five minutes.”

During times of significant flooding, Petersen said PennDOT will often close hazardous roads if local authorities have not done so already.

“Debris can be put onto the road that needs to be cleared off [during a flood],” Petersen said. “Not all of the roadways that are blocked off are closed by PennDOT – for a lot of them, the fire department will jump in.”

Given the nature of flooding, Petersen said often, the only solution to a flooded road is to simply wait.

“Flooding is one of the things that we can’t really do anything about,” Petersen said. “Now, if there is snow, we can get out there and push the snow off the road… flooding is Mother Nature, basically; we block the road and wait.”

By 6:30 a.m., Petersen said PennDOT began issuing news releases with updated road closure information.

Throughout the day, Petersen said the news releases continued hourly and sometimes every half hour depending on the severity of the information.

Both Petersen and Leathers said the best way to stay safe during flood warnings is to simply turn around where there is water over a roadway. Additionally, Petersen said the 511pa.com is another helpful resource for individuals looking for updated road conditions across the state.

While the water has subsided since Jan. 12, Petersen said it’s never unexpected when flood warnings are issued across Washington and Greene counties.

“We live in southwestern Pennsylvania,” Petersen said. “We have more creeks and river areas than most people do, [flooding] is expected – it’s Mother Nature.”