A tale of 2 floods: Unity's Dorothy neighborhood mirrors Connellsville's Dutch Bottom experience
Josh Biller wasn’t thinking about floods when he bought his first house in May 2021.
He was focused on getting moved in and setting up a home office, while enjoying a huge patio and having a place of his own.
“I’ve only been here a year,” he said. “I was finally kind of getting settled, and here we are.”
There is no couch, coffee table or homey atmosphere now. Several fans and two dehumidifiers hummed one day last month in Biller’s first floor, which had been stripped of its carpet and part of the drywall and wood paneling.
The Aug. 5 flooding in the village of Dorothy and elsewhere in Unity and Hempfield has left a permanent mark on Biller and dozens of his neighbors in the coal patch town.
In the days afterward, Biller threw away all of his water-logged, warped furniture, and a GoFundMe page was set up to help with expenses that insurance won’t cover. He’s been working with a restoration company and his flood insurance carrier, something he was required to get at $1,100 annually to secure a mortgage.
“It’s just been one step at a time,” he said. “It’s going to be a process. It would be nice to be back in by Christmas.”
It became home, and still is, but Biller isn’t sure if he wants to keep it that way. Heavy rains worry him now.
“I don’t want to stay after that,” he said. “I want to get it fixed up and maybe in a couple years” move elsewhere.
He knows it might be a hard sell.
All of the 42 homes in Dorothy, just south of Latrobe, were affected after a deluge of rain hit the area that evening, prompting fire department boat rescues and an outpouring of donations and support. In the days afterward, volunteers helped clean up, and the American Red Cross established an emergency shelter. Unity emergency management director Tom Schultheis said 67 township properties were affected, including 13 businesses, and numerous local agencies pitched in to help with a variety of needs for residents and their pets.
Though most can return to their homes, albeit in a much different condition than before the floodwaters, they are still in recovery mode, he said. The township is working with various agencies to get appliances donated and low-interest loans through the U.S. Small Business Administration are available to affected residents and business owners.
Storms can devastate homes
For some in emergency management, the Aug. 5 flood reminded them of a similar flood six years earlier and 25 miles south. Heavy rains on Aug. 28, 2016, pushed creeks over their banks in Fayette County, causing approximately $7.7 million in damage to 165 homes and infrastructure in Bullskin as well as the city of Connellsville and the surrounding township.
“The storms were similar as far as they were a large amount of water in one unique area at the same time,” said Roland “Bud” Mertz, director of the Westmoreland County Department of Public Safety.
The areas the rain hit were similar, too. A small neighborhood in Connellsville, called Dutch Bottom, got the brunt of the flooding, just like Dorothy, which is flanked by Monastery Run. A section of Bullskin along Breakneck Road was damaged, similar to flooding along several populated roads in Unity.
While Fayette’s storm caused far more damage, Mertz said lessons were learned from the response there and replicated here, helping public safety officials be prepared for the Aug. 5 floods.
“I think that we mirrored an awful lot of how they handled that disaster,” he said.
The surrounding areas in both instances stepped in to help. Lloydsville Volunteer Fire Department collected $15,000 and dozens of items to aid the flood survivors, said Lt. David Vogle, department president. Some of those supplies will be used to set up an emergency resource center for future disasters with other area fire departments, Schultheis said.
Firefighters used the money to buy gift cards for food and other immediate needs at first. Now, they plan to distribute Lowe’s gift cards with the remaining $9,000, Vogle said.
“We kind of gained a lot of faith in humanity after that,” he said.
What is different, though, is how both communities look now.
Twenty-three homes in Dutch Bottom and about a dozen more in Bullskin were demolished. Schultheis said he wasn’t aware of any structures in Unity that must be demolished, but said some property owners may choose that route instead of renovating.
Where homes once stood on Breakneck Road and in Dutch Bottom, there are now grassy lots. About half of the homes in Dutch Bottom were demolished and Beverly Soisson of Connell Avenue remembered watching many of them come down.
“I cried. There was nothing else I could do,” she said from her Connell Avenue porch. “I miss my neighbors down here.”
She returned to a renovated home in early 2018 and is among several who opted to stay in the tight-knit community where many have spent their entire lives. There’s a lot more open space now than they remember. The city maintains the empty lots, and it is considering putting in a bicycling or hiking trail, said Vern Ohler, Connellsville City clerk.
“It was a crazy experience, those poor people what they went through,” he said.
Floodwaters wouldn’t keep Johnny Towson away. After his Connell Avenue home was demolished, he spent a couple years with family and rented a place to live. He returned to his old neighborhood in the last few years after buying a house a couple blocks away from his now-gone childhood home.
Being a little farther away from Mountz Creek now, “I don’t think (the floodwaters are) going to get back here, I really don’t,” he said.
Amy Price of Dunbar Township is happy to see the flood-ravaged areas now thriving, though there is a tinge of sadness because of empty spaces where homes and lives once stood. She served as director of a flood recovery center that was sponsored by the United Methodist Committee on Relief. Getting flood survivors back on their feet was an arduous process that took almost three years. Each household got $14,000 in addition to countless household items, furniture and appliances that were donated or covered by insurance.
“The flood happened literally in like a day, but the recovery process is exponentially much longer,” she said.
Survivors in Unity are learning that.
Nic Miller was still moving items out of his Dorothy home three weeks after the flood to make way for new flooring, which was being covered by church donations. A GoFundMe page was set up to help him with other expenses.
“Most people seem to think after the first week, ‘Oh, you should have everything situated,’” he said, but that’s not the case for him and many of his neighbors. Vehicles in the neighborhood were damaged and some were completely ruined in the flood, leaving residents without a reliable way to get around.
He’s still struggling and will be for awhile, like many others. The community endured the shock of water creeping into their lives and throwing their mud-stained belongings away within hours. It was life-changing.
Now is the difficult phase, Price said, which could be filled with worries every time raindrops fall outside.
“They are just now really hitting the hardest part, the long-term recovery,” she said. “People are looking for ‘What is my identity now?’ ”
Renatta Signorini is a TribLive reporter covering breaking news, crime, courts and Jeannette. She has been working at the Trib since 2005. She can be reached at rsignorini@triblive.com.
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