Flooding Undermined Pavement On Middletown Roadway

The rushing water undermined the pavement along Silver Lake Road Saturday evening.

Since the storm, Middletown Township has closed Silver Lake Road between Banks Road and Stone Bridge Court. A look at the roadway on Tuesday showed the pavement was ripped and deteriorating in portions.

Isaac Kessler, the township engineer, said the municipality is preparing to fix the road.

“It needs repair while it is closed,” he said earlier this week.

Kessler explained that part of the problem is that the Bucks County-owned bridge over Core Creek isn’t wide enough to have a large amount of stormwater go under it, so the rushing stormwater goes around it, causing damage to the township-owned roadway.

The same stretch of Silver Lake Road was damaged and had to be rebuilt following Hurricane Ida in 2021.

Kessler said the damage this time was less than in 2021.

Moving forward, Middletown Township will seek to find a way to reduce the risk of storm damage to the road in future flooding events, according to Kessler.

The county-owned bridge was constructed in the 1990s and carries about 500 vehicles each day prior to the closure, according to public data.

County officials came out and inspected the bridge after the Saturday rain event and found no damage to it, according to Bucks County Director of Policy and Communications Eric Nagy.

Sue Schafer, who lives near Silver Lake Road, told LevittownNow.com she saw the force of the water as it rushed toward Core Creek Park Saturday evening.

“It was like a raging river,” she said.

Schafer and her husband watched a young woman in a Jeep traverse the rushing water, causing her to almost need rescue.

“She could have been washed away because it was raging,” she said.

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