CONNELLSVILLE (KDKA) – People who live along the Youghiogheny River in Fayette County are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.

The Yough is expected to crest at six-inches above flood stage and neighbors are getting ready.

Gerry Fosbrink has lived on Sixth Street in Connellsville for more than a decade.

“A little bit nervous, wondering if whether we’re gonna have to move out of our house, you know, or whether if everything’s going to get ruined that we worked all our lives for,” she said to KDKA’s Trina Orlando.

Fosbrink says the worst year was back in 2009.

“It kept coming up through the parks, filled all the parking space down there with water, come up toward here and we thought, ‘No way,’” she recalled. “But it did. It came the whole way up past our house, went in our cellar [and] flooded our cellar. I mean, it was a mess.”

With snow still on the ground and temperatures in the 40s, emergency management officials are keeping an eye on conditions.

“Right now, we’re monitoring the situation and looking with the snowpack and with the predicted rainfall of up to two-inches in southwestern PA, we’re just monitoring the streams and rivers right now waiting to see what’s going to happen,” Jim Bittner, with Fayette County Emergency Management, said.

The people who live in flood-prone areas say they’re used to the situation and are prepared to deal with it.

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