Aliquippa flooding

A couple of local lefties appear to believe in the doctrine of “don’t waste a crisis.”  I omitted the lefties’ names (but provided clues) because I believe it would be a good exercise for readers to track them down.  Before I get to their comments, here’s some background info for those of you not familiar with Aliquippa topography and its flooding history.

Franklin Avenue is the main street (not to be confused with Main Street in Plan 12) running though downtown Aliquippa and what used to be the business district.  This section of town is located in a relatively narrow valley bottom and is the low spot of Aliquippa.  (West Aliquippa may be lower, but it’s next to the Ohio River, a little downriver from downtown Aliquippa, and isn’t part of the same rain runoff area.)  The “highest” portion of Franklin Avenue is where it intersects Kennedy Boulevard/Monaca Road (the Stone Arch area) and the lowest is where Franklin Avenue runs into the old J&L tunnel (the Wye area) along the Ohio River.  The vast majority of rain runoff from Aliquippa – as well as some from Hopewell and Center townships – is funneled through this valley on its way to the Ohio River.  As a result, you won’t be surprised to learn flooding in this area is nothing new and likely goes all the way back to when humans first settled this area.  This is especially the case when there’s a large amount of rain in a short period of time, as we saw on Friday (8/19/11) when we got about 2”-2.5” in somewhere between one and two hours.  When I attended St. Titus grade school (upper Franklin Avenue) in the late-1950s through the mid-1960s, the cafeteria would occasionally flood due to heavy rain.  Stating the obvious, the farther down Franklin Avenue you go, the more flood-prone the valley floor becomes.  It’s not a coincidence all the Franklin Avenue flooding pictures we’ve seen this time around are of locations along lower Franklin Avenue.  Flooding elsewhere in Aliquippa can happen to buildings adjacent to otherwise very small creeks that overflow their banks only during very heavy downpours.

Local lefty #1 opined of the flooding, “This is what happens when deficit hawks ‘save money’ by ignoring infrastructure investment.”  If so, “deficit hawks” have been running Aliquippa for a very long time, even during its heyday decades and when it had “sugar daddies” like J&L.  As I noted above, flooding in this area of Aliquippa under similar circumstances goes back many decades.  None of the reports I read indicated how much of the flooding this time could be attributed to insufficient storm sewer capacity, poor maintenance, and/or storm-time debris blockage.

With the info I have right now I blame no one, but good luck to anyone who tries to blame right-wing extremist “deficit hawks” for Aliquippa flooding.  It’s no secret Democrats have run Aliquippa for decades (not uncommon in Beaver County), probably as far back as the late-1930s/early-1940s.  As of the 2011 primary, 87% of registered Aliquippa voters were Democrats.  Individual precincts ranged from 77% Democrat to 97% Democrat.

Local lefty #2 told us Aliquippa “Flood Waters Bring Racism Floating To The Surface.”  Perhaps we read the wrong news sources and/or associate with the wrong crowd, but we didn’t run across anything remotely similar to this person’s/publication’s allegations, even in his/their own publication.  This doesn’t make the allegations false and we’d be naïve to believe such persons don’t exist, but unfortunately the self-described “citizen journalist(s)” provided no examples to support his/their “rantings and ravings” (his/their description, not mine/ours).  In any case, bigots and race-baiters don’t need an event to bring their opinions “To The Surface;” it’s who they are.  If you’re wondering about our use of “we,” “our,” “his/their,” and so on, you’ll probably figure it out once you figure out who Local lefty #2 is.  Hint: Another local lefty and would-be pundit/reporter with initials similar to Local lefty #2 has the same habit or style.