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Flood ravaged Bucks County residents meet with officials to prevent future flood issues
Residents in Bucks County now hit with too-frequent flooding gathered with state and insurance officials to devise better solutions to an all too common problem homeowners are facing.
YARDLEY, Pa. - When rainy days come, especially over a several-day stretch like we’re having this week, some Lower Makefield Township residents say they will not leave their homes without someone monitoring the drains.
"It’s not a way that you want to live, but it’s our routine now," says April Bollwage-Cloer.
Bollwage-Cloer’s home, along with many of her neighbors in Yardley, were hit hard by devastating flooding in Lower Makefield Township back in July and it wasn’t the first time.
"We have flooring now, but we haven’t replaced walls, because there’s no point," says Larysa Luzeckyj. "Because in the event of another flood, we’ll just be replacing walls again."
The women attended one of several Pennsylvania Insurance Premium Task Force meetings at the Lower Makefield Township Community Center today. Task Force officials say their goal is to make flood insurance more accessible and affordable, and to see how they can incentivize communities to better prepare for the flooding.
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More rain and flooding brings back awful memories to those who live near the Delaware River in Bucks County. And on the eve of a State Task Force visit aimed at addressing flooding issues, that’s exactly what’s in the weather forecast.
Ahead of the meeting, Senator Steve Santasiero joined PEMA and other state leaders to visit Black Rock Road in Lower Makefield, where the state worked on flood mitigation years ago. They also visited the area where seven people were killed in flash flooding in July in Upper Makefield Township.
"It’s very often hard to design any system that can accommodate that, however, there are things that can be done by better coordinating stormwater management among the different towns in the same watersheds, and really using an approach through engineering to try to head off problems before they happen," says Senator Santasiero.
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Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Michael Humphreys says one takeaway they’ve gathered from the meetings is that there is more they can do from the state level.
"One of the ideas that we’ve talked about is increasing a staff complement, or creating an office in the commonwealth that works directly with local communities," he says.
Bollwage-Cloer and Luzeckyj says they liked the information sharing that they heard in the meeting, but want to make sure the task force is hearing from voices like theirs.
"We shouldn’t be expected to bear the financial brunt of this problem because now we’re getting flooded," says Luzeckyj. "It has to be a shared responsibility."
Task Force officials say they plan to wrap up the meetings in June and come out with recommendations after that.