In case you're an ex-pat and are having trouble orienting yourself, this picture is of Corbettsville, at the intersection of Snake Creek Road (Rt. 29) and Rt. 7. Coming from Pennsylvania, you'd turn right to go to Hallstead (the only McDonald's) or left to Kirkwood and the onramp to Interstate 81. Only you can't turn right anymore because the bridge isn't open and most of Corbettsville is still underwater.
I spend the day trying to figure out how to convey the scale of what's happened, because the news coverage I've seen just scratches the surface. I still haven't figured it out, but a bunch of little one-liners is the best I've been able to come up with.
The owner of the farm pictured here lost 45 head of cattle in the flood. The owner of a tractor trailer parked along the side of Rt. 29 almost lost his truck when the shoulder and embankment eroded away beneath one of his tires. Houses everywhere are leaning strangely because some part of them got displaced by water.
You can't drive between Lawsville and Montrose without going to New Milford first (the Franklin Forks bridge is literally gone, not just closed.) The Red Cross shelter at Blue Ridge High School was moved to Montrose because the septic backed up. They may evacuate Great Bend because they're not going to have water for several weeks (their sewage treatment plant was flooded) and conditions are unsanitary. Some Apalachin residents may not have power for several weeks. Despite not having power, The Lounge in Great Bend is open and a band is playing by generator power. Factory Bridge was open but may be closed soon, as they find out more about the structural damage.
Everywhere you go roads show some sign of washout. On level slopes one to two foot channels are cut into the shoulder of the road, and on steep slopes the shoulder is just gone. Some embankments have eroded underneath the asphalt so that the road just crumbles away. Many places you can see where new rivers ran across the road, leaving behind large piles of rocks, dirt and debris. Fields now have streams running through them, or have become gravel pits.
Leave a comment