Eastern Pa. flood destroys homes, businesses

The United States is very familiar with the horrors than can be visited by water. Less than… The United States is very familiar with the horrors than can be visited by water. Less than a year after Hurricane Katrina swept disaster onto the Gulf Coast, Pennsylvania got a taste of the same bitter force.

Unlike Katrina, the floods began quietly in the Northeast. After days of light rain, the torrents seemed innocent enough. Several children were playing outside in backyard puddles and ponds as the rivers silently rose.

After a few days of the rain, many of those backyards were several inches under water. Creeks and streams swelled past their banks and onto their flood plains as runoff from the hills turned streets into washouts and made new flows through fields and houses.

Bloomsburg, the seat of Columbia County, sits at the picturesque confluence of Fishing Creek and the Susquehanna River. As both bodies topped their shores, the low plain of the town’s west side filled with muddy water. It ripped through asphalt, surged around walls and poured into basements and businesses, turning dozens of families’ possessions into garbage.

“We’re just in a bad place,” Tim Noviski, of Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation, said as he directed traffic through town. “A flood wall wouldn’t have done much good with the water coming in from both sides. Everything was trapped.”

Following the flood, the west end of Main Street was reminiscent of East New Orleans’ abandoned streets in the month following Katrina. Mud was crusted over roads and sidewalks, leaving a thin film on walls to show the water’s level. Piles of furniture and appliances sat outside nearly every home. National Guardsmen, police and a work detail from a state prison worked to clean up and restore normality.

“The only thing that makes it bearable is that everyone else is going through it as well,” Erica Oyer said as she helped clean out her aunt’s Railroad Street house.

The town lost drinking water for a week after a cataract knocked out a water main. That was the last large obstacle to a regular routine, since most town businesses could not reopen without potable water.

North of Bloomsburg, many small towns and villages suffered not only from the volume of the water, but the speed. Swollen streams and new waterfalls washed out roads and foundations, leaving many needing help and few ways to get places. In some extreme circumstances, the only passable byways were the dirt roads through the hills.

PennDOT worked around the clock to repair most highways, but some bridges require more attention. At Forks, the home of the nation’s only twin covered bridges, one of the spans was washed away only two weeks after reopening. No wreckage was left behind.

“It’s incredible,” said John Whitenight of Benton. “My friends and I used to party on that bridge. Now, you can’t tell it was there.”

Benton, a small borough in northern Columbia County, suffered as much as Bloomsburg did. A year after a tornado destroyed Town Park, flooding from Fishing Creek swept through the east side of town.

Sandra Martin, who owns a salon beside the now-quiet Fishing Creek, was finally able to reopen her business, but assessed her personal belongings as a near total loss.

“There are people worse off than me,” Martin said as she peeled the “Closed” sign off her door. “But it’s hard to just think about that.”

Her living room bears the familiar stench of mildew and mold, the telltale sign of the still water that Benton had to cope with.

Fortunately, the area can count on relief as they rebuild. Aid workers from the Salvation Army and the Red Cross were in Columbia County the day after the flood began.

“I hate to say it, but we were better prepared for this since Katrina,” said Emily DiMetro of the American Red Cross as she handed out cleanup kits. “It’s the same material for the same situation.”

The area needs all the help it can get. Damage in Columbia County alone topped $100 million on Monday, higher than after the devastating Hurricane Agnes in 1972, and is still rising. President Bush declared northeast Pennsylvania a disaster area on Friday, June 30, committing federal aid to the area as well.

“I’ve seen a lot of floods like this,” DiMetro said. “It takes a lot of work to get things back to normal. And a lot of luck.”