Reporter's Notebook Talk About a Near Disaster!

posted on: August 21, 2006

When the Great Near Flood of 2006 threatened the Wyoming Valley I had a front row seat. Aside from my duties with Solid Cactus, I’m also a radio talk show host. As the rain poured and the river rose, I did hours of disaster preparedness play-by-play at WILK-AM.

Which is worse? A fire which breaks out suddenly, a tornado which appears out of nowhere, or a flooding river, which rises steadily as you watch, unable to stop it? You’d think fires and tornados would be more dangerous, but more people die in floods every year than from any other natural disaster. Sadly, most of the people who die had plenty of warning to leave. Northeastern Pennsylvania also has flooding history. When Hurricane Agnes pushed the Susquehanna River over its banks in 1972 it left 80,000 homeless. The people learned, and pressed the Army Corps of Engineers to raise the levees.

You would think that higher levees mean more safety. You would be wrong. Upriver is where the problems start. As more human development happens upriver, more roofs and parking lots and roads mean less ground is available to soak up the water, and the more water ends up in creeks and rivers. Protection from yesterday’s flood is no guarantee against tomorrow’s threat.

It was with that backdrop that I came to work the week of the evacuation. I love talk radio (no tunes, just news, opinions and callers thank you…). But I have to admit that it’s really just that, just talk. Every so often, radio is valuable. We can help people. I was on the air from 6-9 AM and then again from 6-9 PM. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.

I know the numbers. Depending on how high the Susquehanna crests upstream, you can estimate how high it will rise in Wilkes-Barre. The upstream numbers were bad, and we were flooded with questions. “Does the evacuation apply to me?” If it includes your town, yes. “Do I have to leave?” I have a two word answer: Hurricane Katrina. Others asked about shelters, and we spent hours on the air with updates of exit paths, vacant shelters, and of course, the inevitable river levels. There was a point at which I wondered, based on the numbers, if the levees would hold.

Water plays for keeps, and I spent hours urging people to take this seriously. One of the problems with living in a flood-prone area is the “cry wolf” syndrome. The river threatens but it doesn’t flood. I have two words for us all: Hurricane Katrina. Can we afford to guess wrong? That was our on-air message. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

Then, luckily, the river slowed its rise. Maybe it was the flooding upriver in Binghamton that did it, but now it looked as if the levees would hold and protect Wilkes-Barre. I reported my speculation on-air but also reminded everyone that water can get you in lots of ways. One of them is called a “boil.” That’s when the rising river, pressing against the levees at 8 pounds per gallon of water, times millions of extra gallons, actually burrows under the levee, “boiling” up on the other side. It made levees fail in Wilkes-Barre in 1972 and did the same thing last year in New Orleans. The danger was far from over.

Our work was far from over. People fleeing to higher ground had to negotiate roads washed out by the numerous creeks and streams in our region. We fielded calls from police, emergency management and political leaders. We had to separate fact and fiction. ‘Did the dam fail or not?’ ‘Is the bridge gone? Did you see it?’ ‘Can someone call WILK and confirm whether the bridge at the Huntsville dam failed? Thank you.’

I was up close and personal with the Great Near Flood of 2006. 175,000 people left the flood plain, took shelter and came back again. Safely. Except for the low-lying areas, the levees protected us. This time. I’m an old reporter. I know safety this time is no guarantee of safety next time. That’s the news.