Upper Dublin's Police Chief Talks About Damage To Township From Hurricane Ida

UPPER DUBLIN, PA — Francis Wheatley hasn’t slept much in the past week.

The chief of the Upper Dublin Police Department has been averaging 18-hour days ever since a Hurricane Ida-spawned EF 2 tornado rolled into his township Sept. 1.

“It’s something like we’ve never seen,” Wheatley told Patch. “To say it was overwhelming is an understatement.”

Ever since the tornado carved a path of destruction through Upper Dublin – one local woman in her early 70s lost her life when a tree fell on her house – emergency officials have been working tirelessly around the clock on recovery efforts.

Wheatley said it has been challenging to deal with the different types of emergency calls created by the intense storm – a fatality in a house, people trapped in flooded vehicles, downed power lines – something made all the more difficult by the fact that the police department lost its own home in the storm when the tornado ripped off the roof of the municipal complex that houses the police department and other government offices.

“The phases of the storm were incredible,” Wheatley said.

Twelve hours after the tornado came through, emergency officials were dealing with flooded homes, water vehicle rescues, downed electrical lines, uprooted and felled trees and more.

“How this was not a mass casualty incident, I don’t know,” Wheatley said. “It’s really a miracle if you’re asking me.”

‘It’s Overwhelming’

While the police department is part of a contingent of emergency responders trying to help the community get back on its feet, it is also a victim of the storm, having lost its headquarters due to the tornado damage rendering the municipal building uninhabitable.

On Wednesday, the police department began relocating services to its temporary headquarters, the recently constructed new community library building. The emergency operations center for the department will work out of the Fort Washington Fire Co. building while the remainder of the department, most of its personnel, will conduct operations out of the library.

“There’s so much that has to be transferred,” Wheatley said.

This includes police weaponry, files and evidence for ongoing criminal cases. The latter is particularly tricky given chain-of-custody issues when dealing with police evidence.

Mutual Aid

Wheatley said Upper Dublin wouldn’t have been able to get things done without the help of other area police agencies, around 10 of which came to render aid when the township was going through the worst of it during initial stages of the storm, and directly after.

“The mutual aid from the surrounding police departments was amazing,” Wheatley said.

He said the 10 nearby police departments had a presence in Upper Dublin for the first 48 hours following the storm. Wheatley also credited the help of county emergency services personnel who came to lend a helping hand.

And then there were Upper Dublin’s own public works and parks and recreation employees who helped with things like using front-end loaders to clear large downed trees out of roadways so the emergency responders, like police, fire and EMS, could attend to other emergencies.

“It was an amazing effort on behalf of everyone who works in emergency services,” Wheatley said.

Wheatley even said some electrical companies from Canada who had originally been making their way to Louisiana to help with storm remediation stopped in Upper Dublin to help with recovery efforts when it was clear that this town was among the hardest hit during Hurricane Ida.

He said some Upper Dublin residents even hung Canadian jerseys outside their windows and displayed Canadian flags on their properties as a sign of gratitude for the help they received from the Canadian line workers.

Wheatley said the first 24 to 36 hours following the Sept. 1 storm were really “triaging,” dealing with emergencies like rescues, car accidents and removing vehicles from roadways. In all, he said there were around 60 abandoned cars on Upper Dublin roadways after the storm.

The next morning, “we’re looking at just total disaster,” Wheatley said.

‘Neighbor Helping Neighbor’

Wheatley doesn’t just serve as the police chief in Upper Dublin, he’s also a local resident, making it difficult at times to work on recovery given the connection to some folks who have suffered tragedy due to the storm.

“We’re dealing with friends and neighbors who have all grown up together,” he said, noting that Upper Dublin Township Manager Paul Leonard is also a local resident.

Wheatley, who resides in the Fort Washington section of the township, said that fact alone makes things very difficult, since some of the damaged homes and properties belong to people he knows on a personal level.

He even said there are local fire officials who live in Upper Dublin who sustained damage to their own homes during last week's storm but who would nonetheless shift into work mode and jump to the aid of others.

The fact that everyone started coming together to lend a helping hand after the storms made Wheatley proud to live in this community.

“Neighbor helping neighbor just makes you so proud,” he said.

Give UD Some Space

Wheatley said he understands the fact that Upper Dublin was an epicenter of last week’s storms may cause the curious to flock to the township to witness the damage firsthand, but he implored folks who don’t live in the township to stay away for the time being and give emergency officials some breathing room as they attempt to recover from a storm the likes of which he’s never seen.

“These are our friends, these are our neighbors,” Wheatley said, noting that officials are doing the best they can to help heal the damaged township.