Flood — York, Pennsylvania
2011-09-07 to 2011-09-11 · near Eastmont, York, Pennsylvania
Event narrative
Life-threatening flash flooding resulted in numerous water rescues across York County. Additionally, home evacuations were reported in Dover and Felton, and Route 74 was closed near Weigelstown.
A tractor-trailer carrying huge concrete slabs drove through the flooded intersection of Lincoln Highway and Kreutz Creek Road in Hallam and rescued people from the roofs of their vehicles. Wrightsville also reported major flooding and roads were closed in all directions out of town. A stream was reported to have eroded an embankment at the Mount Rose exit off of Interstate 83. Multiple water rescues in occurred in York, Hallam, Mount Wolf, Red Lion, Loganville and Shrewsbury. Water came over the road at Little Conewago Creek at PA Route 74. North George Street at Dundee and Aberdeen was flooded in York. Indian Rock Dam in North Codorus Township closed its gates to help minimize downstream runoff.
On man was killed in his basement after striking his head because the power was off due to the flooding.
A preliminary total of 19 buildings were destroyed, 161 suffered major damage, and 778 suffered minor damage with a total of 1,209 structures impacted. Damage was estimated at $4,716,703 for public facilities.
Wider weather episode
Heavy rainfall from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee produced widespread flooding, flash flooding and river flooding mainly near and to the east of the Susquehanna Valley from September 4-10. Several locations in the Susquehanna Basin came close to records set by Hurricane Agnes (June 1972) and a few points (Bloomsburg, Hershey and Loyalsockville) set new floods of record. Flooding along Swatara Creek resulted in property damage and several deaths. Severe flooding occurred along Loyalsock Creek and many points along the main-stem of the Susquehanna River. The interaction of a stalled frontal boundary over the Mid-Atlantic region, a strong northern stream short-wave (with a persistent jet entrance region) and deep tropical moisture associated the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee resulted in multi-day, significant heavy rainfall event over Pennsylvania.
Tropical storm Lee was the twelfth named storm of the 2011 season forming over the Gulf of Mexico on September 1. A strong northern stream short-wave interacted with Lee causing the storm to re-curve to the north-northeast. By 1200 UTC September 6, having undergone extra-tropical transition, post-tropical Lee was located over northern Georgia. The surface low weakened as it moved up the Appalachian Mountain chain. However, the strong low-level flow and the above normal precipitable water produced an extensive, north-to-south oriented band of heavy rainfall.
The rainfall associated with the remnants of Lee produced the 4th largest flood of record in the Mid-Atlantic Region. The five-day storm rainfall totals for September 5 to 9 were generally in the 5-8 inch range over the mid-section of central Pennsylvania and in the 8-12 inch range in the Susquehanna Valley region. There were local amounts reported in excess of 15 inches east of the Susquehanna River. The local climate sites in Harrisburg (KMDT) and Williamsport (KIPT) reported 13.44 and 9.03 inches respectively. On September 7, 2011 both KMDT and KIPT set their all-time daily (24-hour) rainfall for the month of September at 7.71 and 6.76 inches respectively. These sites later went on to break the all-time monthly (September) and annual precipitation records, making 2011 the wettest year on record.
View location on OpenStreetMap → (40.0655, -76.8274)
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 348731. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.