Merchants who operate in a plaza near the intersection of Campbells Run and McMichael roads in Robinson Township have had to deal with flooding issues more than once over the past decade or so.
But that didn’t make the most recent episode any easier to deal with.
On Thursday, June 26, clogged storm drains were overwhelmed by the amount of rain that fell during a fierce storm, and flood waters found their way into a number of the businesses at that location.
Embroidery PGH and Pure Power Yoga are among the tenants in a plaza at the intersection of Campbells Run and McMichael roads in Robinson Township that sustained flood damage recently. (Photo by Frank Garland/West Hills Gazette)
Annie Yokitis, who operates Pure Power Yoga, wasn’t at her place of business when she got a call from one of her instructors, whose level of composure seemed to sink as the water rose.
“She kind of panicked,” said Yokitis, who has operated her business in that plaza for 11 years. “She said the water was getting really high in the parking lot and she was getting really nervous.”
The instructor wasn’t sure if she should move forward with a scheduled class but after sending Yokitis a video of what was happening in the parking lot, Yokitis didn’t hesitate.
“I called her and said absolutely cancel the class – and get people out of there,” she said.
Yokitis and Pure Power Yoga got off relatively easy – this time. “But our lobby still got ruined,” she said. “We had an inch of water throughout the whole lobby area and it’s unusable right now. But our studio area didn’t get touched, which was a blessing.”
That wasn’t the case in June 2018, when significant flood damage forced Yokitis to relocate to Steubenville Pike for three months while her studio was renovated.
Kim Schlaegle, who owns Embroidery PGH, agreed that the 2018 episode was much worse.
“But overall it was a similar situation – heavy rainfall in a short amount of time overwhelmed the drain system, causing it to overflow our lot,” she said.
Schlaegle the 2018 high-water episode taught her a valuable lesson – never keep anything on the ground again.
“So we do not,” she said. “We had custom cabinets made with metal legs, so we are very fortunate this time to have just had to pause to remove the carpet.
“My floors are messy, but we are still up and running. All in all, we are very lucky and grateful it’s not that bad this time.”
Schlaegle said she believes the flooding issue is linked to inadequate storm drainage on McMichael Road. She said several retention ponds have been built to accommodate development on that road but she believes those ponds need to be maintained better.
“I do think this issue can be addressed and prevented for our location,” Schlaegle said. “I just think a lot of parties will need to be involved to make it happen.”
Yokitis said she’s not sure what the solution is but she hopes one can be found, especially since this is the second time in less than a decade that something like this has happened.
“It’s frustrating, to say the least, to know that at any time, we might not be able to operate,” she said. “I don’t know what the answer is, but all I can say is I hope that something can be done.”
Another business impacted by the flooding was ServiceMaster, which specializes in disaster restoration.
“We clean up after floods and water damage,” said Kelly Meyers, one of the business partners. “We took care of ourselves like we would have taken care of a customer.
“At least we had the right equipment.”
Meyers said employees had to remove all of the business’ contents and get everything dry.
“We’re still going through our inventory,” she said late last week, “but we lost a lot of equipment and tools.”
Meyers said she wasn’t sure who should be responsible for working to eliminate the risk of future flooding issues. “I can’t answer that,” she said.
Neither could Jason DeRose, who owns the plaza where Yokitis and Schlaegle operate. But like Schlaegle, he believes the stormwater management strategy and the detention ponds need to be examined.
“Vegetation was ripped out to create new construction, and water just pours off the hill,” he said. “The retention ponds there are not working. I know Gateway Engineering has a retention pond, but I don’t know how effective it is.”
DeRose brought his concerns to the township Board of Commissioners Monday night, calling the damage that his tenants sustained as a “devastating disaster.”
“The water just pours down there,” he said of the flow down McMichael Road. “Stormwater management is a crucial key to what I think is not working the way it should. I probably have 5 ton of gravel in my parking lot from the fresh tar and chips.”
Michael G. Meyer of Remington & Vernick Engineers, which provides engineering services to the township, acknowledged that the township has fielded other drainage-related complaints and said that township officials would examine each of those complaints and determine the best way to address them. That could mean devising a way to stop or slow down the flow of water from above the plaza, increasing the size of culverts or something else.
DeRose said after the meeting he was pleased with the commissioners’ response to his concerns. “It sounds like they’re taking it seriously,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll take a harder look at it.”
The June 26 flooding proved to be problematic for more than just the merchants at 4898 Campbells Run Road. The high waters and the damage that came with them forced the closure of Campbells Run Road between Keiners Lane and Baldwin Road for nearly a full day while Allegheny County workers cleared mud and debris and also repaired a portion of the road that had been the site of a paving project the previous day.
Jason Molinero, the county’s deputy director of public works, said that Campbells Run – a creek that runs adjacent to the county-maintained road – filled up and had nowhere else to go other than the roadway and some adjacent properties.
Molinero said the road fluctuates in terms of elevation, and the flooding occurred in one of the lower-lying areas. “It’s especially vulnerable to flooding, more so than other parts of that same road,” he said.
Molinero said county roadways have drainage systems designed to take rain or snowmelt into an underground system that outlets typically to a stream.
“In this case, the systems that flooded were completely overwhelmed,” he said. “There was simply nowhere for that water to go because the whole system was submerged at that time.”
Molinero said last week his department was still gathering facts about what occurred. “But the level of flooding of the road was unusual,” he said. “That’s not to say there’s never been any flooding there before. But the level to which our road was submerged was something we didn’t anticipate.”
Molinero said roughly 2.5 inches of rain fell in less than an hour on June 26, leaving parts of Campbells Run Road under three feet of water.
Molinero said there are some steps that can be taken to remediate the flooding issues.
“But as often happens in situations like this, it’s very complicated and spans multiple municipalities and the entire watershed, and development upstream may impact and increase the amount of runoff that goes into a creek or stream like Campbells Run,” he said.
Molinero said the county’s main responsibility is to maintain the roadway itself, so addressing issues that might be causing or contributing to the flooding issues “is kind of beyond our purview in a lot of ways.”
“We have to work with other municipalities, with private development, with the state to find ways to try to mitigate these kinds of situations as best we can. From our standpoint, we focus on the roadway itself and make sure our drains are functioning properly, not only for these types of flooding events, but making sure water is getting off the roadway.”
Molinero said the county maintains a 408-mile road network but recognized that the issues with Campbells Run Road are important.
“But it takes a holistic strategy,” he said.
To that end, Molinero said the county has reached out to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to see what help it can provide or whether a study of the area would be warranted.
Regardless of whether that comes to pass, or whether the local jurisdictions and development community come together to tackle the flooding issue, the county plans to move forward with a substantial widening and reconstruction project on Campbells Run Road.
The project will result in a minimum three-lane corridor with a two-way center turn lane from McMichael Road to Keiners Lane, a 1.6-mile stretch of the 4.5-mile road that runs from Carnegie to Steubenville Park (State Route 60).
Molinero said the county hopes to go out to bid on that project later this year, with construction to start in 2026. The tentative completion date is 2030.
The project will feature new left and right turn lanes at major intersections, the realignment of Boyce Road and Parkway View Drive to create a new four-way signalized intersection and the widening of the parkway off-ramp to Campbells Run Road, among other things.
Be First to Comment