People rescued from cars submerged due to flash flooding

Flash flooding affected communities in Allegheny, Washington and Fayette counties Friday night.

Stay with WPXI.com and Channel 11 Morning News as severe weather continues to move through the area.

Route 51 in Pittsburgh's Overbrook neighborhood in Allegheny County and the natural water slides at Ohiopyle in Fayette County were just some of the areas dealing with high water.

The Washington fire chief told Channel 11 this storm caused worse damage than Hurricane Ivan back in 2004.

For many of the residents, the cleanup hasn't even started.

TRENDING NOW:

• Woman recovering after police say man kidnapped her
• Outer Banks islands go dark, ending vacation for thousands
• Flash Flood Warning issued for several counties, heavy rain possible
• VIDEO: Pitt disciplines four football players ahead of training camp

“Mother Nature came with a vengeance this time, a hard vengeance,” said Valerie Mack of Washington.

“It's a disaster," added Marvin T. Meriweather.

People living along Houston Street in Washington are now dealing with the aftermath of intense flooding, their basements are under up to 6 feet of water.

"Everything was submerged,” Mack said. “My hot water tank is covered."

Residents are dealing with property that is destroyed and damage believed to be in the thousands.

"We're in the process of pumping water out of the basements; we have sheet after sheet of places to go to," said Linn Brookman, city of Washington fire chief. "This quick of rain was even worse than Hurricane Ivan."

Mack says floodwaters were so high, her dog nearly drowned in the backyard.

"I had to run back there. My little boy next door helped me get him."

Channel 11 went a few blocks over to Harrison Street and found a boat stuck in the grass.

The owners say the force of the floodwaters physically moved it 30 feet to the front yard.

And along Chestnut Street, a street sweeper attempted to clean up the debris.

Chief Brookman said they will continue pumping out basements throughout the evening into the morning.

As always, don't drive through standing water.

RELATED LINKS:

• Heavy rain leads to flash flooding, several warnings in effect
• VIDEO: Heavy rain moving through Pittsburgh

Fayette County

Fayette County experienced severe flooding issues in its southwestern areas.

First responders rescued several people from vehicles after they attempted to drive through flooded roads.

The Emergency Management Authority is asking everyone to not attempt to drive through floodwaters.

Residents of Lower Gallatin Avenue in Uniontown City have been evacuated and taken to the Uniontown Central Fire Station.

Several roads throughout Uniontown and South Union have been closed to traffic.

No injuries have been reported.

The EMA is asking people to avoid calling the 911 center.

One of the main streets in Uniontown had water rushing across it 2 1/2 to 3 feet deep at one point Friday night.

Workers at a car dealership moved quickly to get cars out of the water’s path.

Brian Klink grew up in this area and says the water coming into his mom's garage is about as bad as it gets. He said he has a Corvette in there and the water was up to the middle of the tires before it went into his mom’s basement.

“This is probably the worst I've seen it,” Klink said. “We were worried for a while and by the grace of God, it stopped raining and water receded.”

He said the problem is only getting worse and the town needs to do something to fix this.

“I would like to see the township fix the bottleneck down here, open it up,” Klink said. “Water's gotta go somewhere, we don't want it in our basement or garage.”

Allegheny County 

A creek on Hope Hollow Road in Scott Township overflowed Friday night.

According to Allegheny County's Twitter account, a high pressure gas line ruptured near the creek.

Cox Media Group