HONESDALE, Pa. — Tropical Storm Isaias wreaked havoc in Honesdale. The heavy downpours closed streets in the borough and washed away a section near the intersection of Vine Street and Commercial Street.
Many residents wound up with water in their basements and spent the morning cleaning out.
"We had over a foot of water. When we finally caught a break, between the traffic routing from the CVS, where they were flooded going down the street, we finally got to Home Depot, and they had three pumps left so we had to buy the expensive one, but it worked, and we're dry now," Theresa Franco said.
"It was coming down the hill, and the road would turn but not the water, and it came over the grass into our house. We had some tires and some boards out just to redirect the water, and that helped because it was like a hose in the basement," Matthew Kambic said.
It didn't take long for the rain to dry up and the roads to clear out so crews could begin doing their work to clean up and make repairs.
Kambic lives just up the street from where the damage was the worst. He brought his kids down to watch the crews and heavy equipment repairing the mess on Vine Street.
"It's not every day you get to see all of this happening. We had seen the sinkhole, but it got a lot worse, so it's going to take a lot of effort, I'm sure, to fix it," Matthew Kambic said,
"I like the truck, and my favorite part is that I love that truck that's getting rocks and putting it in that ditch," Elena Kambic said.
Despite the damage and detours, residents are pleased with the response from Honesdale officials and borough residents for keeping everyone informed.
"They were reporting what was going on, the YMCA was giving showers to people that didn't have power. Just like with COVID-19, the community got together and helped everyone out and made it quicker."
A section Vine Street is closed for emergency repairs, but all other streets that were closed due to flooding are back open.