100 WVIA Way
Pittston, PA 18640

Phone: 570-826-6144
Fax: 570-655-1180

Copyright © 2022 WVIA, all rights reserved. WVIA is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations

Flood prep tested in Wilkes-Barre

 City workers return floodgates to their non-emergency positions on Regent Street in South Wilkes-Barre. During floods, the doors are swung open (as on the left) and metal slats are dropped to create a higher channel for water to flow above bridges along Solomon Creek.
Tom Riese
/
WVIA News
City workers return floodgates to their non-emergency positions on Regent Street in South Wilkes-Barre. During floods, the doors are swung open (as on the left) and metal slats are dropped to create a higher channel for water to flow above bridges along Solomon Creek.

After a successful levee drill last week, the Wilkes-Barre City Emergency Response Team continued testing its flood preparedness plans Monday.

About 27 staff members from the fire, police and public works departments met in South Wilkes-Barre to evaluate four floodgates along Solomon Creek.

Wilkes-Barre City Fire Chief Jay Delaney said the gates were added in the early 2000s to allow water to flow over the top of the bridges while protecting the neighborhood around South Franklin, Barney, Regent and Waller Streets in the event of a flood.

Testing the gates during non-emergency scenarios helps first responders’ reaction time and shows if improvements need to be made to equipment, Delaney said.

“It’s a safer time to do it right now in the middle of the morning on a sunny day, rather than 3 o’clock in the morning on a dark night during a hurricane trying to get them closed to evaluate and find out if there’s problems,” he said.

In 2021, Wilkes-Barre Mayor George Brown ordered city departments to drop the floodgates when Solomon Creek began to swell. Residents were asked to leave their homes.

“During Tropical Storm Ida we evacuated this whole neighborhood down here because the water came up so high,” Delaney said. “We had the floodgates closed and they actually protected the neighborhood and there was no flooding.”

The National Weather Service recorded more than five inches of rain on Sept. 1, 2021 in Wilkes-Barre. Ida made landfall in the U.S. in southeastern Louisiana several days prior on Aug. 26, according to a NWS report.

Last week, staff from the same three city departments assembled a portable levee in the northern part of the city, Delaney said. The Emergency Response team took inventory of equipment then built and broke down the removable levee along North Washington Street on May 1.

“When there is a potential high water event we don’t start the day-of, we start several days before with the National Weather Service looking at all the forecasting and the models,” Delaney said.

New sections of the Laurel Run Creek channel walls can be seen in a photo shared by Wilkes-Barre Mayor George Brown on May 1. Heavy rainfall at the end of April caused the water level to rise.
Wilkes-Barre Mayor's Office
New sections of the Laurel Run Creek channel walls can be seen in a photo shared by Wilkes-Barre Mayor George Brown on May 1. Heavy rainfall at the end of April caused the water level to rise.

In addition to recent preparedness exercises, the City of Wilkes-Barre has also improved channel walls along Laurel Run Creek and Mill Creek, part of a more than million dollar project, according to a statement from the mayor’s office. After heavy rainfall at the end of April, Mayor Brown shared photos of higher-than-average water levels in Laurel Run Creek rushing between the new channel walls along Kresge Street.

With the tests and improvements completed for this season, the fire and public works departments will continue to collaborate and adjust their flood response plans. Delaney said in coming weeks staff members will discuss strengths and weaknesses of the exercises.

Tom Riese is a multimedia reporter and the local host for NPR's Morning Edition. He comes to NEPA by way of Philadelphia. He is a York County native who studied journalism at Temple University.