CATASAUQUA, Pa. - After a day of high winds, heavy rain and ferocious flooding all over the Lehigh Valley, the cleanup started in full force Wednesday morning in Allentown.
"If you want to travel it's a pretty good situation that we're still evaluating. Some of the roads are open and we are finding some still have sinkholes by some inlets, which we will be addressing," said Craig Messinger, Allentown's director of public works.
And despite a lot of work ahead, officials with the Lehigh County Emergency Management Agency are breathing a big sigh of relief.
"The forward-thinking here, ya know, was basically from past practices hey we could have used this last time so let's try it let's see what's gonna happen, we put it all together and it worked and we're proud of it and ecstatic at the cooperation we had from other agencies," said Lehigh County Director of Emergency Management John Kalynych.
The county knew the storm was coming, so they put a plan in place that included a high-water vehicle and boat crew. They had police, fire and EMS crews that came in from every section of the county, and even from Berks, Monroe and Carbon counties, all to make sure they had as much help as possible.
"And we're already making plans for what can we do next time and how can we make this better it worked but we want to be even better next time," Kalynych said.
