Overview
- Heavy rain on Sunday produced fast-onset flooding in Canton Township that prompted a state of emergency and more than 30 emergency calls to local fire departments.
- Emergency teams and mutual-aid crews carried out multiple water rescues, including saving a resident who was swept into a tree after attempting a rescue himself.
- Several businesses along Chartiers Creek suffered severe damage, with owners reporting equipment losses that could reach hundreds of thousands of dollars and cleanup timelines of weeks to months.
- Local officials and business leaders say repeated creek backups, clogged channels and unremoved debris have caused recurring floods and that the creek falls under PA DEP jurisdiction which they say has not acted.
- Washington County and PEMA are collecting damage reports through the CrisisTrack portal to document impacts, prioritize relief and build the case for state or federal remediation that township leaders have requested for years.