Flash Flood — Centre, Pennsylvania

2016-10-20 to 2016-10-21 · near Yarnell, Centre, Pennsylvania

Event narrative

Intense heavy rainfall brought flash flooding to Centre County late in the evening on Thursday October 20th, continuing until daybreak on Friday October 21st. Major damage was reported to parts of the area.

Up to eight inches of rain fell in a short time, resulting in evacuations and rescues in low lying areas that were flooded. Threats to water supplies, sewage treatment facilities, road washouts and widespread damage to property and infrastructure occurred.

Centre County issued a Disaster Declaration for this flood. This included the municipalities of Milesburg Borough, Boggs Township (Twp), Spring Twp, Centre Region (State College Borough, Patton Twp, Ferguson Twp, Harris Twp, College Twp and Halfmoon Twp), Union Twp, Liberty Twp, Curtin Twp, Benner Twp and Howard Twp.

The total infrastructure damage as assessed by PEMA and FEMA teams is approximately 2 million dollars.

Over twenty swift water rescue teams (SWRT) responded to the area.

Purdue Mountain Road is closed indefinitely with costly repairs needed to reopen the road.

A bridge on Fariview Road in Boggs Twp was closed due to flood damage. This resulted in a nine mile detour.

The Julian Pike in Patton Twp required three culvert pipes to be replaced before reopening.

Drytop Road in Boggs Twp was repaved with new culvert pipes installed.

Other major roadways impacted include SR144, SR550, SR150 and Business 322.

PENNDOT claimed at least 150K in damage to roadways.

The Bald Eagle School District was closed on Friday. Park Forest Middle School in the State College School District was flooded and closed for several days. An estimated 275K in damages occurred at the school.

The SEDA-COG, Nittany Bald Eagle Railroad, and North Shore Railroad suffered damage from bridge and culverts being washed away. The estimated costs is 350K with 150K being eligible from claims according to FEMA damage assessment.

There is also an agricultural impact. The region was in a state declared drought and the soil was not stable. Widespread severe soil erosion and debris flow was deposited on crops and fields.

See: http://www.centredaily.com/news/local/community/bald-eagle/article115021138.html .

Wider weather episode

A potent cold front pushed into an unseasonably warm and humid air mass, generating widespread showers and thunderstorms. There was a considerable amount of both low level and deep layer shear, and some of the storms produced damaging winds. A line of convection stalled and trained over Centre, Clinton and Lycoming counties during the late evening hours, producing a swath of 4 to 8 inches of rainfall from just north and west of State College northeastward to near Lock Haven, Jersey Shore and just north of Williamsport. There were numerous road closures due to high water in Patton Township, Centre County and several water rescues were reported along Bald Eagle Creek in Milesburg, Centre County, and across northern Lycoming County and western Sullivan County.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.0147, -77.7338)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 660372. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.