Officials preparing for possible ice jams, flooding along Pittsburgh-area rivers
Emergency officials along Pittsburgh-area rivers are on the lookout for potential ice jams.
The East Brady fire chief told KDKA-TV that he's monitoring the Allegheny River closely, looking for ice jams that can quickly raise the river level and cause extensive damage.
"It's pretty neat," Phillip Brandon said. "It's been like this for several weeks."
Nature's beauty can only hold so long before the power of the river takes hold.
"It seems like it's close to breaking free and heading down, and if it does that with all this rain, it could flood in some places downriver or around here," Brandon said.
East Brady's Fire Chief Phillip Beabout told KDKA-TV that the potential is real.
"Parker called. Said their ice is coming, leaving out," Beabout added.
Video shared with KDKA-TV showed the ice from earlier Sunday upstream in Parker before the river began to flow again toward East Brady.
"Things are starting to happen, but we don't know, please stay off the ice for your own safety and try to stay out of the park if you can cause things can go bad quick," Beabout said.
The residents KDKA-TV spoke with on Monday say the ice level isn't as high as they remember in 2018 when the icy Allegheny flooded East Brady.
"Not where I'm at, but downtown Brady, the trailers and that, it's a little scary yeah, but it's a beautiful view when it breaks," resident Mike Swearingen said.
Swearingen lives on the west end of town and overlooks the river from a hill. He saw the ice breaking on Monday morning.
While it may be spectacular, officials say looks can be deceiving. They are waiting to see what happens and say they have noticed an increase in the river level.
Video from New Bethlehem, Clarion County, shows the ice already on the move. The chief told KDKA-TV that the creeks are already running high. The water flows into the icy river, which can help create ice jams.
"When it starts to break loose, depending on how fast the water is coming up, we'll start asking people to evacuate their homes if they have to," Beabout said.
They have seen it before in this town. Beabout says it could rise by potentially 15 feet.
"But it gets up there quickly, and there's nothing anybody can do about it. It's taken out some of my friends' camps completely. They've had to rebuild. That's definitely happened in the past. I could see it happening again in the future," Brandon said.
Now, all people in the town can do is wait to see what the river has in store for them. The chief says they will not know what will happen until it happens.
