Flood now reaching historical proportions

Beaver Creek

 I didn't post any photos from day 2 of the flood.  I couldn't get off the mountain.  As soon as I drove down the hill, on every road available, one creek or another flooded out the roads.  I was high, if not always dry, though a little water in the basement is far better than what I could see earlier today down off the mountain.

The first and second views are of Beaver Creek. I couldn't get the entire creek, which is normally about 6-7 feet wide, in a single photo.



Beaver Creek

My third photo is of Pinchot Lake.  The canoes are usually well above the shoreline and not anywhere near where you'd expect them to be covered by water.  The flood in this area is now reaching historical proportions.  Worse than this was Hurricane Agnes in 1972.  I was home from college at the time and remember that we had 18 inches of rain in 3 days.  This event is about 14 inches in the same amount of time.

The Governor's Mansion in Harrisburg has already been evacuated.  During Agnes, the governor had to be taken from the mansion in a boat.  This time, the governor's people called in half a dozen moving vans to move everything off the lower level, and the National Guard is sandbagging the place, hoping to keep the water out, but no one knows if that will work or not.

Several bridges across the Susquehanna are already closed.  Several people have died. The Senators baseball stadium is under water.  The sewage and water treatments plants are beginning to fail.  Thousands have been evacuated already. The river is expected to crest just a foot or two below the Agnes level.

From my perspective, this flood is in some ways worse than I remember Agnes, in that the smaller creeks seem more affected than I remember them back in the day when the population was fewer and development much less.  But I'm doing fine and am in far better shape than many people today. 

Pinchot Lake