Photo: Miranda Fedor
Residents of Lancaster County have experienced a wet end to the summer this year. Friday, Aug. 31, heavy rain turned roads into rivers in some parts of the county.
The Mount Joy-Manheim area was affected the most, with flash floods occurring after a stationary thunderstorm unleashed about eight to 10 inches of rain in four hours, according to LancasterOnline.
Elizabethtown College sent out an email Friday warning students and staff that parts of Route 283 and other local roads were closed and that the Amtrak schedule had changed due to flooding. This may have affected people’s travel plans over Labor Day weekend.
Earlier this summer, the College and Elizabethtown community were more directly affected by flash floods when heavy rains caused flooding in Elizabethtown itself July 24 and 25. Businesses often visited by students, such as Lucky Ducks Bar and Grille and Rita’s Water Ice, were affected by the extreme weather in July.
The basement of Lucky Ducks Bar and Grille flooded with about three feet of water, according to their Facebook post Wednesday, July 25.
“We haven’t seen this much water in our basement since the flood of 2011,” they wrote.
The post also mentioned that the flood water moved kegs, knocked over the ice machine and broke it in two, damaged the glycol unit used to cool draft beer and ruined food and other items that were in dry storage.
With the glycol unit under water, Lucky Ducks could not serve draft beers. They continued to only serve bottled beer for about two weeks until Tuesday, Aug. 7 when they posted on Facebook that they were serving draft beers again.
Lucky Ducks’ compressors were also in the basement, and the water caused their freezer and refrigerator to stop working. They used the freezer and refrigerator at Groff’s Meats until the water damage was cleaned up, according to their Facebook post July 25.
Lucky Duck employees helped by moving food out of the basement and cleaning up after the Etown Fire Department pumped out the flood water. Despite the damage to the basement, Lucky Ducks was open for its normal business hours Wednesday, July 25, according to the Facebook post they made that day.
Unlike Lucky Ducks, the local Rita’s in Elizabethtown was closed Wednesday, July 25. No water entered the building, but the flooding did carry away the gravel in the parking lot and two parking signs, according to Damon V. Suglia, who owns the Rita’s and the Vinnie & Pat’s next door.
“I was very concerned because I was unsure if the water would breach the building,” Suglia said.
He also said that he stayed up all night Tuesday, July 24 watching the videos people posted to Facebook and the feed from his security cameras to check if the water was entering his businesses or not.
He was most concerned about the possibility of the water damaging the Italian ice machine in Rita’s.
After the flooding subsided in the morning, Suglia cleaned up the mud and soot that had washed into the parking lot from Canoy Creek and fixed the gravel.
He also made a Facebook post asking if anyone had seen the two missing parking signs.
Employees at NAPA Auto Parts, which is about half a mile away from Rita’s, found one sign.
Christopher Snook, an employee at the M&M Mars factory, found the other sign in the trees near the factory. Suglia said he thinks the signs were washed downstream in Canoy Creek, with the second sign being found nearly a mile away from his businesses.
Both Suglia and Lucky Ducks were grateful for help from the community during the aftermath of the flash flooding. Lucky Ducks thanked their employees, friends, patrons and Groff’s Meats in their Facebook post. Suglia also expressed his thanks.
“I do appreciate community support at a time of need like that,” Suglia said.
