6 Months After Hurricane Ida's Carnage, Upper Dublin Recovering

UPPER DUBLIN, PA — To hear Francis Wheatley tell it, the story sounds like something out of a movie.

But the destruction in this township from a tornado spawned by Hurricane Ida in September was, in fact, very real, and the effects of that devastating storm continue to be felt in the community nearly six months after Ida rolled through the region.

Wheatley, Upper Dublin's police chief since 2019, recently gave Patch a tour of the new temporary police headquarters — which is housed in a wing of the Upper Dublin Public Library.

The impressive, state-of-the-art police department, which is located in the commercial office park in the Fort Washington section of the township, was quite an undertaking, even though it was put together in an incredibly fast timeframe.

Nine-Week Turnaround

It only took around nine weeks to get the space up and running, Wheatley said, which was amazing given everything that needed to be done to turn a wing of the library into a fully operational police department.

The task was "monumental," Wheatley said, and involved not only constructing a new facility with touches such as reinforced walls and ceilings in evidence and weapons storage rooms, but also involved moving everything out of the old police department while additional officers were deployed to stand watch over the former building, which was unsecure and could have been a potential target for marauders.

And, of course, while all that was taking place, Wheatley still had a police department to run, since emergency calls don't stop just because a police headquarters gets demolished.

Emergencies Don't Stop

Fast forward nearly six months later, and, while things have calmed down a bit, Wheatley is still reeling from the unexpected natural disaster.

"We're running twenty-four-seven trying to cover emergency response," Wheatley said while walking a Patch reporter through the building.

While the new building is great, it still lacks very important things, such as prisoner cells and places to interview suspects, so it is still being considered a temporary facility.

"From an emergency standpoint, we have enough to operate," he said.

Upper Dublin Board of Commissioners President Ira Tackel told Patch that the price tag to create the temporary police facility was about $1 million, although the township fully expects that its insurance carrier will bear the cost of construction.

"It's a complex process," Tackel told Patch by phone. "We're navigating through that process now."

Specialized Upgrades

Meanwhile, back at the building, Wheatley showed off all the touches that help the department operate round the clock, but also ones that were necessary for safety and made for an interesting design situation.

For instance, the armory at the facility, which is where all the weapons are kept, is only a short distance away from a portion of the library building where the public has access, so Wheatley said the department had to explain to the insurance company why it was crucial to reinforce certain portions of the structure during the design phase.

Another monumental task involved moving all of the evidence from cases over to the new facility from the destroyed building.

Wheatley said Upper Dublin brought on a retired investigator from the Montgomery Township Police Department, Mike Solis, to strictly focus on helping with the transfer of evidence.

Solis worked alongside Upper Dublin Police Corporal Dave Madrak on the "monumental task" of evidence organizing.

Built To The Highest Standards

Wheatley gave a shout-out to Madrak, who is the department's accreditation manager and who is also the officer in charge of the Community Response Unit.

"He doesn't get enough accolades in reference to the foresight and the needs," Wheatley said of Madrak, who has been with Upper Dublin since the early 2000s. "We're not just talking about building a police station, we're talking about building a police station to meet all the standards within accreditation."

Upper Dublin has been an accredited police department for the past 16 years.

Wheatley said even under normal circumstances it can be daunting to meet standards to keep a department accredited — to meet those requirements in a situation where a department is operating out of a temporary space due to unforeseen tornado damage is very impressive, he said.

Evidence Maintenance

The issue of proper maintenance of evidence is so important from an investigative standpoint, since tainted evidence can kill prosecution at trial.

"You lose a case," if something is wrong with the evidence, Wheatley said.

Of course, in addition to reinforcing walls and ceilings so nobody could access the evidence room, the department also had to focus on ventilation, since the room sits below a portion of the public library.

"We have a lot of weapons, we have a lot of drugs, we have a lot of stinky drugs," Wheatley said. "They had to put a special ventilation system in here to kind of suck [out] this smell."

Looking Forward & Words Of Thanks

For now, Wheatley is pleased with how far things have come since that devastating day back in early September, but he acknowledged that much still needs to be done.

Wheatley also thanked all of the neighboring police departments who served in mutual aid roles when Upper Dublin was in the midst of dealing with the immediate aftermath of the tornado last fall.

He said police personnel from many of the area departments in eastern Montgomery County really came through when it came to offering a helping hand when Upper Dublin's officers had their hands full.

They helped in various ways, such as helping to field calls in the immediate hours following the tornado to housing Upper Dublin's prisoners in its cellblocks since the new temporary facility lacks holding cells.

Wheatley said he is very grateful to have such wonderful neighboring departments who dropped everything to make sure Upper Dublin could continue serving its community during what was a very difficult time in the department's history.