Flood of 2011- Crest is highest in history.....

UPDATED on Sept. 12th-- The river had receded, the mandatory evacuation of the Wyoming Valley has been lifted and the Levee has held. Many THANKS to the Army Corp. of Engineers who built the Levee system to withstand actually MORE water than it should have.

However, many, many areas not protected by the levee system has been devastated. The beautiful Victorian town of West Pittston has sustained the worst flooding it has ever seen with water in many of the second floors of beautiful Victorian homes. Such a heart ache. My good friend, Lisa Lewis, Victoriana Lady, even though she lives in West Pittston , did not see flooding at her home. There was supposed to be a Home Tour in West Pittston this weekend of several homes that ended up being flooded and the Library and a historic church which also were flooded.

I start a 2 week vacation tomorrow after working tonight as my patients will be moved back to my Rehab Unit today. We will be running our church Flea market for the last time this coming weekend and then recouperating the following week. Maybe a day trip or two but lots of seasonal work to get done...
But I will still be here in Blogland!!

My original post:

I am writing this with a heavy heart as I thought and hoped I would never see flooding like this in the area in which I live for a second time in my life .

It was the summer before I entered 10th grade in 1972 when Hurricane Agnes wrecked havoc through the Susquehanna River basin in Pennsylvania.

At that time, it was deemed the worst natural disaster in United States history and the most costly. Flooding from the Susquehanna River devastated the entire area where I live.
Fortunately, my parent's home ( the second home my Dad built) was spared as we were one of the few who were high and dry. Unfortunately for my sister, who had only bought her first and only home 3 months prior, the flood waters completely covered her ranch home.
If my parents would have not moved out of Swoyersville, it would have destroyed our home too.
Even though my home was not affected, this disaster changed my life and memories of it stay with me to this day. All of my aunts and uncles, my two best friends, my school, all the shopping centers where my parents shopped and my church were devastated by Agnes.
After seeing and living with such destruction for 2-3 years, I vowed that I would NEVER live in the Flood Zone.
I baby sat my niece and nephew who were 3 and 18 months old in my sister 's government supplied trailer that entire summer while my sister helped my Dad rebuild her home as her husband worked all day. My Dad had his leg casted up to his thigh because of a building accident that disabled him for the rest of his life and he rebuilt my sister's home from the studs up.

She has since added a second story and has had to move everything up to that second story only a few days ago. My sister and 2 of my nieces were part of the 110,000 evacuated from the Wyoming Valley Flood Plain on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011. They are at my nephew's home in Mountaintop which is located at a much higher elevation then I am.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am high and dry as are my sons.

The river supposedly crested @ 38.8 feet, the second highest crest since Agnes when the river crested at 40.9 feet.
We have just been told via EMA that the Gauges failed and the river actually crested at 42.66 feet!! It is now down to 40.1 feet at the current time..... The levees are holding back water that they never thought that they would. It is a higher level than Agnes and higher than they thought the dikes would support......

This is the Susquehanna River @ Wilkes Barre.

I am going to show you pics from WNEP TV website and from The Times Leader newspaper website.

The new levee system is designed to protect the city of Wilkes Barre and towns on the other side of the river up to 41 feet.

There are some "issues" with the levee which they are sandbagging and hopefully, dealing with.
We are praying they hold until the river recedes.......

This was taken from a roof top in Wilkes Barre, looking at the river...
That is the historic Market Street bridge...

 These are more pics of the Market Street bridge....

Looking at the river again from a roof top in Wilkes Barre.....

This is Water Street and this is the Country Court House Annex ......

The levee system in Wilkes Barre......

You can see the dome of the Luzerne County Court House in the background to the left. That is a railroad bridge in the foreground.....


This is the levee system on the west side of the river across from Wilkes Barre. This is where during Agnes 72 , the river broke through and took 2000 bodies and graves from the Forty Fort cemetery with it, scattering them through out the west side....

During the night, there was a massive effort to shore up this wall with dirt as an EMA official noticed a crack....... They worked through the night to create a wall of dirt against this wall......

You can see that the river is actually higher than those yards!!!!
Should this dike not hold, it will flood where my sister and nieces live....

This is a picture of planes being moved from the Forty Fort Airport ( a small one) up Wyoming Ave. in Wyoming ( where Joe delivers) to higher ground.....

This is the KMart Plaza in Edwardsville , across the river from Wilkes Barre on the west side...


The water came up higher than these pics and it is now actually up to the bottom of the Kmart sign and you see no windows.....

This is in Nanticoke which is on the east side of the river and where the Luzerne County Community College is.



This is Shickshinny on the west side further down from Wilkes Barre....

This is on the east side of the river in Jenkins Township across from Wyoming over the new Eighth Street Bridge which just opened a few months ago......
The old one is just partially demolished......

Looking over the new Eighth Street Bridge in Wyoming toward Jenkins Township....

This is the Water Street bridge looking over toward West Pittston.
The Post Office that my husband works out of is in that batch of buildings that you see....

Again, the Water Street Bridge connecting Pittston and West Pittston.....

Looking toward West Pittston..


Trying to build a dike of their own in Exeter....

This is Susquehanna Ave. in West Pittston before these signs where completely covered. This is where my good friend, Lisa Lewis, Victoriana Lady, lives. So far, she is not affected by flood water.....

Looking up from Susquehanna Ave,. in West Pittston. Many of the homes on Susquehanna Ave. are beautiful Victorians.
West Pittston chose not to have the Levee system built along the river.....
The residents liked the beauty of the river front......

An intersection in West Pittston which has now experienced worse flooding than Agnes.....

An upended Coffee Shop in West Pittston....
Where I graduated from High School is right down the road....


This is in Pittston looking down toward Kennedy Blvd. The Post Office that Joe works out of is to the right out of the picture. It was not flooded.....
The flooding is coming from Storm drains backing up from the river as this side is up very high from the river itself.....

The Post Office would be to the left of the CVS.....

Joe did work today(9/9) and was able to get over one of the 2 remaining bridges that are open to cross the river to deliver his mail.
However, since they have just now revised the actual crest to 42.66 , which is the highest recorded here, and the levee system is holding back water pressure of an enormous amount, he has now been called back to this side of the river. I am sure you know I am relieved.....

All of this has brought back terrible memories for me of Agnes...

Memories of when I went to help my sister and BIL get clothes out of their home during Agnes and we had to drive through yards to escape the water which was coming up the street in waves.....

Memories of when we climbed a huge bank behind my sister's house to look down upon it and did not see it as it was completely covered by water and her falling to her knees and screaming......

Memories of walking through my sister's devastated home, seeing her windows bowed out, her floors buckled , her sweeper hanging from the ceiling and not being able to pump the water out of her basement until 3 weeks after the water went down and the holes left in the walls as the furniture banged up against them as it was floating.......

Memories of that awful smell of Flood mud....

Memories of how I cried when I learned that my best friend's family slept in a tent at a State park because they could not get to an Evacuation Center.....

Memories of all my Aunts and uncles homes destroyed......

Memories of not being able to start school until the end of Sept......

Memories of those Civil Defense Sirens blowing every time another area of the dike failed.....

Memories of seeing all the anguish on the faces of just about everyone I knew at the time....

Yes, I swore I would NEVER live in the Flood Zone and I am now more glad than
I have ever been that I made that decision.......

Please pray that the levee system holds and that the river recedes quickly before the entire Wyoming Valley is devastated beyond belief!!!

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Hugs,