Philadelphia Is Starting To Get A Handle Of The Damage Caused By Ida’s Floods

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The people of Philadelphia today are taking stock of the damage after flooding from Hurricane Ida rains washed their homes and businesses. Katie Meyer from WHYY reports from the particularly hard-hit Manayunk district.

KATIE MEYER, BYLINE: Austin Trusty stands in a manayunk parking lot covered in mud from the Schuylkill River, looking out over the former deck of a building his architectural firm is renovating.

AUSTIN TRUSTY: The quarterdeck is obviously gone, swam down Main Street.

MEYER: The old stone building is in poor condition – windows and doors were blown away by the flood. Although this was a historically dire flood, Trusty says his company plans the renovation on the assumption that extreme weather events, driven by climate change, will become more common.

TRUSTY: The way we design this, we’re designing it around the flood plain to make it through, when that happens the damage is minimal, it’s a purge and we’re open again.

MEYER: Up and down Main Street in Manayunk, the scene is similar. Business owners survey damage, dig up mud and silt, and see what they can save. Tim Spinner’s Taqueria Amor restaurant has around 2 meters of water in the basement and now needs a new HVAC system. Not sure how much the insurance covers, but he tries to be positive. Others have it worse.

TIM SPINNER: You know, you just have to keep going, don’t you? Can’t give up. So it’s one by one. But this is Philadelphia you know This is Rocky. He gets knocked down, he gets up and keeps fighting.

MEYER: The damage not only affects companies. All over this part of the city, cars are lined up in strange nooks and crannies after being swept away by the floods. Marquis Jones has parked his tow truck in a mud-covered parking lot right on Schuylkill. He hands out business cards as one person at a time comes up to him to ask if he can move their car. He says pretty much everything is a total write-off.

MARQUIS JONES: The insurance companies don’t play with it – everything that has accumulated, everything, you know, got wet, and it all adds up.

MEYER: Even 24 hours after the flood has receded, Philly is only just beginning to get the damage under control. To the southeast, Interstate 676, a main road into the city, still looks more like a muddy canal than a freeway. The officials do not know how much the cleanup and restoration will cost. Fire chief Adam Thiel says one thing is certain – it will be slow.

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ADAM THIEL: The recovery process for that will take months.

MEYER: But Thiel and other officials say there is at least one silver lining – despite the historic floods, nobody in the city was killed.

For NPR News, I’m Katie Meyer in Philadelphia.

(SOUNDBITE BY TAYLOR MCFERRINS “DEGREE OF LIGHT”) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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