Last night in Millvale, residents, business owners and emergency crews were grateful that the third wave of thunderstorms passed through without causing more flooding.

	Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette
	Millvale residents look to the heavens as they gather on Fornoff Street to watch the Girty's Run as it rises near the top of the wall just after the second round of thunderstorms late yesterday afternoon. Click photo for larger image.
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But that was little consolation to those whose homes and business were damaged twice in one week.

Yesterday, the mayor called for a mandatory overnight curfew in the community, lasting from 8:30 last night to 6 a.m. today.

"Right now, we're trying to pump out as many basements as we can with the fire department and secure the town for fear of looting." Millvale police Sgt. Derek Miller said, adding that there were power outages in parts of the community that were not likely to be repaired until late today.

After police shut down the town, the Millvale Community Center remained open over night with American Red Cross workers on standby to offer assistance and emergency crews remained on duty.

An estimated 200 homes and 45 businesses sustained damage yesterday morning when driving rain -- more than 2.5 inches in two hours -- gorged Girty's Run, a creek that usually meanders through the town, flooding its stone-wall banks. Waves of mud washed through the streets and water burst through basement walls.

Fortunately, Sgt. Miller said, no one was injured.

Sgt. Miller said the situation likely would have been much worse had it not been for the town siren atop the Millvale Fire Department building, which was sounded at 8 a.m., warning the residents of the rising floodwaters. It was enough notice for fast-moving residents to scramble into their basements to rescue whatever they could.

Many of the townsfolk spent much of yesterday pumping out the lower levels of their homes and piling sandbags around doorways as forecasters warned that another storm was on its way.

Many of the buildings that were damaged yesterday already had been flooded earlier this week, when heavy rains transformed the same small waterway into a churning force that could not be contained.

"It's been about another 30 percent [of property damage]," borough Manager Virginia Pucci said. "Some homes and businesses that had basement flooding [Monday], now had some first-floor flooding."

Allegheny County Emergency Management Director Robert Full, speaking last night at emergency headquarters in Point Breeze, said that it didn't seem fair -- especially considering the flooding these same residents endured in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan barreled through the region.

"When you go out there and walk their streets and see the pain on their faces," he said, "your heart just ... you just feel so bad."

Mr. Full said the rains that fell this week washed down through the same corridor that Ivan used in 2004. And it pushed along much of the same debris, which, because it had never been cleared away, quickly clogged the waterway.

"Quite frankly," he said, "two and a half years to get that stream clear seems excessive, and we ran out of time. Right now, if that stream had been attended to sooner than today, or on Monday, then we may have at least been able to save the pain and suffering of some of the businesses and residences out there.

"So we have impressed upon [the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers] the importance of moving forward with the cleanup."

In September 2004, Hurricane Ivan dumped 11 inches of rain on Millvale over 36 hours. The water levels in the heart of the town rose above North Avenue's parking meters.

On Sept. 22, 2004, President Bush toured Millvale, shaking hands with business owners and promising to help the devastated borough.

"We understand the federal government has an obligation to help, and we will," he said in a speech that is still posted at the White House Web site. Later in the speech, he said, "I predict to you, Mr. Mayor, that within a reasonable period of time this town is going to be back on its feet, better than ever, more hopeful."

"What the hell's been going on since 2004?" asked county Councilman Jim Burn, D-Millvale, who was the mayor of Millvale when Hurricane Ivan hit.

Mr. Burn blamed development upstream for causing the floods.

"Twenty years ago this same storm would cause Girty's Run to rise a foot," he said. "Now this same storm devastates the business district and houses along the creek."

He said taxpayers shouldn't be paying to study the problem.

"We know what the problem is," he said, adding that the Army Corps of Engineers should install a series of retaining ponds to catch the water and hold it before it floods the borough.

Even without the government's help, the borough was in the process of recovering from Ivan. Businesses rebuilt only to be flooded again this week.

The money needed to study how to rectify the flooding in Millvale is part of the Water Resources Development Act, which passed in the U.S. House and is expected to pass in the U.S. Senate after Labor Day, but Mr. Bush has threatened to veto the $20 billion bill.

That bill, which contains $90 million for flood control projects along Girty's Run and Pine Creek in Etna, also contains $3.5 billion for Hurricane Katrina-related projects in Louisiana.

Matt Dinkel, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, who represents Millvale, said that if the president vetoes the bill, Congress has the votes to override the veto.

"We need help," said Carol Pilgram, 63, of 306 North Ave., who was helping her neighbor, Marie Barum, 78, to the Millvale Community Center, where the American Red Cross was handing out cleanup kits that contained squeegees, mops, brushes, bleach and cleaners.

Asked if the recent flooding wasn't easier to withstand than that of 2004, Ms. Pilgram scoffed.

"If you call mud, and taking all your stuff upstairs and running around like crazy ... that's our life."

"If this was Fox Chapel or one of those other upscale communities, somebody would have done something," a mail carrier said, declining to give his name. "But here, nobody seems to care about these people."

"I have no idea what to do," said Theresa Grenesko, 55, who owns buildings on the 500 block of Grant Avenue.

Ms. Grenesko was at work yesterday when one of her daughters called just after 8 a.m., frantic about the water rushing down the street, rising up over the wheels of her car parked out front.

She rushed home, where she oversaw efforts to save the boilers she'd just put into the basement as part of her recovery from Ivan. Her daughters and their friends pulled up in a truck that they'd loaded with 50 sandbags that they filled themselves down under the 40th Street Bridge.

A neighbor stopped by and told her not to waste her time brushing mud from the doorstep; another storm was on its way.

"I spent $10,000 just to battle the mold," Ms. Grenesko said as she recounted the doors, windows, walls and flooring that all had to be replaced. And none of the money came from government aid.

"I'm just so sick of giving money out," she said.