In the several weeks since severe weather tore through Northeast Ohio, communities have been cleaning up and debriefing the storms’ impact.
Friday, Jeffrey Gilbert and his fiance were preparing to move their belongings from one apartment to another in their Lorain apartment complex. On the evening of August 23, the couple and the neighbors recall strong storms and then chaos.
A neighbor first alerted them the rainwater was spilling into the building.
“The thunder and lighting was crazy. Then it poured and poured again. It was nonstop. I don’t think it stopped raining here until like 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning,” Gilbert said. “Her flooring in her living room was all warped. It was coming in through the window. There was water coming up from the toilet.”
The storm flooded homes throughout Lorain County, including in Elyria, where the city was responding to dozens of calls.
“Normally, these storm sewers keep up with everything. But that just shows the magnitude of the storm,” said Superintendent Terry Korzan Friday, pointing out the large drainage system outside the Elyria Wastewater Pollution Control plant.
In a matter of 12 hours, heavy rainfall overwhelmed the facility’s system. The plant’s lower parking lot and operations center were submerged in 6 inches of water, and roughly 3 feet flooded the lower level of a pump house. Korzan said it deluge was not something for which they could have been prepared.
“Systems aren’t designed for that,” he said. “That’s a lot of the reasons we had the flooding.”
The amount of water surpassed what the existing equipment could measure, but Korzan estimates it was 20 times the normal daily flow. Comparing the numbers, he found the rainfall that fell in 12 hours on Aug. 23 rivals the total five-day period when Hurricane Sandy came through Northeast Ohio.
“Systems weren’t able to catch up after the 2 inches of rain. Then we got hit with another 4-5 inches of rain directly after. So that just made things a lot worse,” he said.
The lifelong Elyria resident said the event was similar to what he remembers as a child on July 4, 1969. Severe weather on that date was the last time the Wastewater Pollution Control plant flooded.
“Nonstop lightning, nonstop supercells that just kept forming one after another after another. And they just wouldn’t let up. That’s what led to the devastation this time as well,” Korzan said.
The plant is functioning normally, and the city is working to update infrastructure to relieve the at-times overburdened wastewater system. But Korzan said some things Mother Nature outpaces technology.
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