CROSS KEYS — It may not have been extensive, but it was intense.

Four-and-a-half inches of rain fell within two hours last Friday afternoon in Allegheny Township, a storm so severe that it is expected only once in well over 500 years, according to a rain gauge cited by road foreman Dave Spinazzola and a storm chart cited by consulting engineer Christopher Dutrow at a supervisors meeting Thursday.

About 10 residents asked for something to be done to prevent a recurrence, but officials were able to offer little more than sympathy and willingness to write advocacy letters.

Stormwater conveyance systems are typically designed to handle “10-year” storms, so flooding was to be expected after a storm more than 50 times more severe, Dutrow said.

Moreover, the township isn’t obligated to correct stormwater problems — although it must maintain stormwater conveyance facilities it owns and can regulate new construction to prevent the situation from worsening, said solicitor David Pertile.

“I realize that’s not going to help these problems,” Pertile said.

The township declared an emergency following the storm in hopes of freeing up money to help residents recover, but total county damages weren’t close to meeting the high threshold needed to qualify for that funding, said Silke Morrison, the township’s coordinator of planning and development.

Most of the flooding seems to have occurred along Spencer Run, which spilled over its banks onto properties on the north side of Pletcher Road, and along drainage ditches and periodic streams on both sides of Municipal Drive between the township building and the railroad tracks, which are just beyond the I-99 overpass and just short of the Beaverdam Branch of the Juniata River.

Brenda Claycomb lives along Pletcher Road.

“We were trapped,” Claycomb said. “It was very frightening.”

The water was up to her knees, and it moved her car, she said.

Prior flooding had caused thousands of dollars in damage to her property, and things are in disarray again, Claycomb said.

Her property is probably not sellable, she said.

“What are you doing to help?” she asked supervisors.

“It’s not within the realm of what we do as a municipality,” said Chairman Dave Burchfield.

He acknowledged that she’s been flooded a half dozen times before.

“I don’t know what to tell you to do,” he said. “Sorry.”

“I just want it fixed,” Claycomb said.

When previous flooding occurred, supervisors tried to intervene without much success, Burchfield said.

Maybe local lawmakers can help, said Jeff Ritchey, who also lives along Pletcher Road.

Such efforts would likely mean “chasing your tail,” Burchfield said.

“You guys have more power than all of us,” Claycomb said.

Supervisors don’t have any more power than this, Burchfield said, holding up his pen.

Debris — including a refrigerator — from upstream has piled up in Spencer Run behind his property creating a dam, so that water builds up, Ritchey said.

“The quick fix” would be to run a bulldozer straight downstream for about 300 yards, Ritchey said.

He didn’t need to say that that would not be permitted by Department of Environmental Protection regulations.

The basic problem is that homes were built along the creek, Burchfield said.

The water Friday was more than 3 feet deep just off Municipal Drive, along Knee Lane, across from the former Allegheny No. 1 Elementary School property, said Ian Nedimyer, son of Jerry Nedimyer, owner of properties along the lane.

A video shot from a drone above Municipal Drive and posted on Facebook shows wide brown swaths of water on both sides of the drive.

Fill placed in 2017 on the former ballfield at the school to elevate the ground for future development, coupled with debris and vegetation that have plugged ditches and culverts designed to take water eastward along the drive toward the river have caused Knee Lane to flood twice last summer and on Friday, Ian Nedimyer said.

The fill prevents the ballfield from serving as a semi-natural retention pond, as it used to do, he said.

The former ballfield ground is on the fringes of the river’s floodplain, but not in the floodway — so the application of the fill was legal, Dutrow said.

The culverts could be cleaned out by their owners — actually should have been maintained by their owners — but it’s not clear who those owners are, Dutrow and others indicated.

A PennDOT official said the department would do something about the blockages if the culverts turn out to be its responsibility, Jerry Nedimyer said.

“This doesn’t sound like the place to get help,” he said. “No offense.”

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.