Flood Damage Spans Across Bradford County
By: Eric Deabill
Updated: September 14, 2011
Wyalusing, Bradford County - It has been another day of sizing up the damage and picking up the pieces after historic flooding.
Communities across Bradford County took a beating from the swollen Susquehanna River.
Many homes and businesses were heavily damaged.
After being submerged under eight feet of water, the Wyalusing Creek Plaza is just starting to dry out.
"I was sick and I just cried my eyes out," Penny Hamilton said.
Hamilton owns the community floral shop in the Wyalusing-area. She is one of the plaza's five businesses which lost everything.
"We've all just pitched in and realized that you've just got to help each other in a time of need. There's a lot of people that need help right now and we've just decided to team together," Hamilton said.
In downtown Towanda, professional cleaning crews are working to get one of the busiest buidings, One Progress Plaza, back to normal.
"We knew it was gonna be a lot of rain but we weren't expecting this much. I don't think anybody was," Kathy Joyce with the Pennsylvania Country Artisan Center said.
For the last few days, just getting around Bradford County has been difficult.
Part of Route 6 in North Towanda Township was heavily damaged. In the village of Luthers Mills, the main bridge is still closed because it is filled with debris.
In East Troy, homeowners say they're also cleaning-up after they saw between three and four feet of water.
"People ask us how we're doing this and we tell them we're doing it the same way you'd eat an elephant, a bite at a time," homeowner Jan Cooper said.
In the Athens area, furniture and other items now line the streets as businesses also try to bounce back there.
People across Bradford County are calling both the river levels and the damage "historic."
"You've gotta pick up your feet and press on. There's a light at the end of the tunnel but you've gotta believe it," Hamilton said.
Free clean-up kits and water are being distributed at four different locations across the county...including the Wyalusing Fire Hall, the Athens Borough Building, the Monroeton Fire Hall and the Rome Township building.
