2011 Flood Perspectives

  
I said I was going to slow down...not go away.

Here's a pic of me kayaking the Susquehanna near Wysox, PA. It was taken from the top of the river's natural bank, which is a good ~20' or more above the river at "average" flow.

Here's a picture of "Bradford Bear", which is setback ~30 feet or more from the spot where the picture above was taken. You should be able to see the guardrail in the photo.

Below is a pic of Bradford Bear ( almost dead center ) taken on 9/8/2011. The water was still rising, and went up another 8" or so. The mailbox in the foreground/left was eventually covered.

All photos taken by DK Natt.

As of the date of this post, almost a month after the river crested, the Natt's are still without electricity.

  

National Weather Service? Who dat?

     
Folks, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this.

You saw my 20.24' forecast for the crest of the Susquehanna River at Wilkes-Barre, provided about 4 hours before it actually happened earlier today. The National Weather Service predicted it would crest at 22.6'.

The actual crest was 19.75'. So, I came within 2.4% of the actual crest...about ~6 inches off.

The NWS? They got within 14.4% of the actual number. Like 34.2 inches off.  Almost 3 feet!

Who got spanked? The National Weather Service. The supposed experts.

Data from USGS website for Wilkes-Barre gauge - 9/30/2011

Imagine if everyone along the north branch of the Susquehanna had an extra 4 to 6 hours to move their belongings to higher ground when Tropical Storm Lee dumped its load. How much more could have been spared being pitched into the streets? Of course, the broken USGS gauge at Wilkes-Barre is being blamed.
  
Sorry, but it is blatantly obvious to me that the NWS and the LCFPA do not know how to interpret upstream data and extrapolate the same to predict flooding @ Wilkes-Barre. And these people are the "experts" the media runs to for information?

Really?

The next time there's a potential flooding event along the north branch of the Susquehanna...check in here first.
    

River Crest Update: September 30th

      
  
Umm, err...per this article, the National Weather Service has forecasted the Susquehanna to crest at 22.6 feet in Wilkes-Barre today. Per my post 4 hours ago, my number was 20.24 feet. Let's see how we stack up against the "experts".

Later.
  
 

20.24' Crest @ Wilkes-Barre?

  

   
Folks, as of the time of this post, the Susquehanna River has not yet crested at Wilkes-Barre. It has crested at the 3 USGS gauges upstream. Based upon the same general calculations and averaging factor I used in this post, my forecast for the Susquehanna's crest on 9/30/2011 - barring any additional precipitation - is 20.24'.

Let's see how close we come to that number. Outside of additional rain or a dam release upstream, the only variable here which might have a slight (negative) impact on the eventual crest is the dropping temperature.

See you tomorrow.
 
 

Susquehanna Flood Mud & Dust Toxic?

         
Folks, here's a post from 2+ weeks ago about my recommended post-flood precautions. Here's a news article from today's headlines.

The respiratory complaints are only the beginning. People should take every precaution not to breathe the dust from the drying flood mud.

Hmmm. Maybe Chesapeake, Williams and others would consider supplying the public in affected areas with high-end masks instead of giving away blankets and beer can holders at Penn State games?

Now that's something I would support. 

Happy Monday.
     
  
 

Luzerne County Behind Closed Doors...AGAIN!

  
Unreal. That was my initial reaction to this editorial in today's Times Leader.

In a Pennsylvania county infamous for a never-ending cavalcade of corrupt politicians and doing business behind closed doors, the brilliant Luzerne County Commissioners decided to exclude the public and the press from the first post-flood meeting to discuss...the flood.

Seriously...how detached from reality can these three commissioners be? 

For those that visit often, you know my views on the recent flooding. I won't take the time to regurgitate them in this post. Just look at my last three or so offerings and you'll get the picture.

This may soon become more interesting than the recent "kids for cash" debacle under the dome.

Stay tuned.
  

Calculating Wilkes-Barre's 2011 Flood Crest

Okay folks. Here's your situation:

 

• It's September 8th, and you're locked in a room in the bowels of the Luzerne County Courthouse.
• You've just been told the USGS gauge a few hundred feet away from you has failed. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of homes are being threatened by the crest of floodwaters surging downstream toward the Wyoming Valley and beyond.
• Your job? Forecast the crest of the Susquehanna River @ Wilkes-Barre using only the data from the three graphs above.

ASAP!

The pressure's on...so here we go.

The simple formula:

Height of crest / gauge site floodstage = "Floodcrest Factor"

Using the graphs above, which were available online at all times:

Sayre: 27 / 12 = 2.2500 ff

Towanda: 30.5 / 16 = 1.9063 ff

Meshoppen: 44.5 / 27 = 1.6481 ff

Average floodcrest factor upstream = 1.9348 ff

Okay...with me so far?

Floodstage @ Wilkes-Barre = 22 feet

Drumroll please.....

Projected floodcrest @ Wilkes-Barre:

22 x 1.9348 ff = 42.5656 feet

Actual floodcrest @ Wilkes-Barre: 42.66 feet

Folks, in the absence of readings from the Wilkes-Barre USGS gauge, there was adequate data available from the still-functioning gauges upstream to forecast the potential floodcrest @ Wilkes-Barre to within ~0.3%, or just over an inch.  

I realize my approach may be too simplistic for some and, of course, hindsight is 20/20. I'm not an engineer or a rocket scientist, and I didn't sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night...but I work with numbers all day long, and have been for 30+ years as part of my career in finance and related fields. Additionally, I've been monitoring the USGS gauges on the north branch of the Susquehanna for years as well, both for my kayaking endeavors and whenever there was a potential flooding event on the horizon. 

I believe the upstream data available to all the people monitoring the rising Susquehanna River clearly indicated the high water record set by Hurricane Agnes in 1972 @ Wilkes-Barre was about to be eclipsed. Why that wasn't quickly communicated to the people of the Wyoming Valley and further downstream in Shickshinny and Mocanaqua is beyond me.

Numbers don't lie folks. People do.   

          

                

"This is going to be worse than Agnes."

       
As someone who frequently paddles the north branch of the Susquehanna River, I am very familiar with the USGS Streamflow website. A quick check of any of the PA gauges north of Wilkes-Barre will tell me in an instant whether the river levels are safe, and if so, whether my trip will be fast...slow...or if I'll be scraping bottom most of the time.

After monitoring them for a decade or so, it's to the point where, based upon the reading at Towanda, I know if I'll have to go around the left side of an island just below Standing Stone, or if the narrow channel on the right will be deep enough to allow paddling without having to drag our kayaks over a few low spots.
 

  
To my point: in the ~24 to 36 hours leading up to the 42.66' crest at Wilkes-Barre, I was monitoring the USGS gauges very closely, as evidenced in a previous post. And folks...the numbers being predicted for the crest at Wilkes-Barre just weren't adding up. As back-up, here's an e-mail I sent to one of my fellow bloggers on Thu, Sep 8, 2011:


Mark:

Many of my friends upstream had to literally sprint out of their homes at 2 a.m. because water was pouring into their basements from the river. They were told by local authorities they had until 2 p.m. to get out safely. So much for accuracy when it really matters...

It's going to be a close one for W-B...the river is just starting to crest upstream. I'm not quite understanding why each upward adjustment for the crest at W-B was exactly 1.1 feet.

Stay dry & safe. And no damn pics from the Black Diamond!


Even when the river reportedly crested below 39 feet, the numbers - based upon gauge heights upstream - still weren't making sense. Of course, we found out after the fact that the gauge was capped at some number below 41.0 feet, and you know the rest of the back and forth that has ensued.

This past Friday, I was in the Wyoming Valley to take my father to a long overdue medical appointment. While I was waiting for the results of some procedure to come back, I struck up a conversation with the attending Dr. about the recent close call for the Wyoming Valley. For the record, this man is a prominent member of the community and is a second or third generation business owner. Anyway, I'm sure he had no clue who I was except the person sitting in front of him and one in a series of several patients he was scheduled to see before heading home for the day.

As we spoke about the areas hit hard by the recent flooding, he mentioned that an acquaintance was a neighbor of a fairly visible and knowledgeable member of the Luzerne County hierarchy. He went one to say that well before the river crested - the night before the evacuation order was given, I believe - the neighbors were discussing their preparations for the potential high waters when the Dr.'s acquaintance supposedly offered something like:

"I'm not worried. My home was not hit by Agnes."

to which the Luzerne County insider said,

"This is going to be worse than Agnes."

Folks, I wonder what residents of towns like Towanda, West Pittston and Shickshinny would have done of they knew that the high waters heading their way from the tag team of Irene and Lee had a very high probability of eclipsing the mark set by Agnes...say, 6 to 12 hours in advance of when the evacuation orders were planned or given? How much more could have been saved...or moved to higher ground?

I've already contacted a local reporter regarding this issue. The rest is up to that individual.

        

Levees and Floods: Letter from April 2003

 
To all:

I had to unpack, boot-up and search two mothballed ( and extremely slow ) computers to find the email below, but I was damn determined to do so.

The online link to the letter as published in the Citizen's Voice in 2003 is an old zwire web address, and I cannot get it to work.

Anyway, here's what I had to say in a Letter to the Editor about levees and future flooding over eight years ago. I've cleaned up most of the text breaks to make the letter an easier read.

*********************************************************


----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Williams" <djw@netcarrier.com>
To: <editorial@citizensvoice.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 8:45 PM
Subject: Re: Levee Completion


> To: Jim Gittens - Here's a text copy as requested. I'd appreciate having  the letter printed as written. If you want to adjust the punctuation a little, be my guest.
>
> Thank you for your response.
>
> Don.
>
>**********

Dear Editor:

Floods happen. They are an integral and permanent part of a river's natural cycle. Even with dams, levees and all the engineering innovations of the past, the present & the morrow...rivers will continue to inundate their floodplains until the end of time. Man may delay the outcome, but nature always prevails.

People construct homes and buildings of commerce on floodplains. After each flood, these same people cry for more protection. "Raise the levees - dredge the river"...not realizing neither action will prevent future floods.

Prior to the 1700's, Pennsylvania - "Penn's Woods" - was covered by forests from the Delaware River to Lake Erie. It was once written that a squirrel could travel from the Atlantic shores to the Mississippi River without ever having to touch the ground. And amidst the forests were the swamps, a.k.a. wetlands. More than half the wetlands are gone, and even today the forests are sold to the highest bidder behind closed doors.

Think about the travels of a raindrop back then. It would first contact the upper reaches of the arboreal canopy maybe 150 feet above the forest floor. Layer upon layer of pine, oak, hemlock and maple would slow its descent. When it eventually reached the ground, which was cooled by almost constant shade, it would slowly seep into the dense humus-rich soils and percolate into and become part of the water table. Any dust or impurities were removed either by chemical or physical processes. The forests & wetlands acted as buffers, reservoirs and filters. How was water quality back then?

You can't even imagine.

Picture that same raindrop hitting a parking lot, driveway or city landscape of today. Surface runoff - storm drain - sewer system - stream. It gets to the nearest waterway a lot faster, dirtier and warmer than its counterpart of yesteryear. Envision that same area covered by thousands of umbrellas  at various levels, with the ground itself covered with sponges wrapped in fine, porous filters. A very simple example, yes. But that's what is missing today. The forests and wetlands were nature's flood protection and water purification system for hundreds of thousands of years. Today, we pay for
a far inferior substitute that once was perfectly free.

The Army Corps of Engineers knows it...they just won't tell you. As more land is developed, as more forests are felled, wetlands filled and streams  channelized...floods along the Susquehanna are going to increase in  magnitude. If an event equal to Hurricane Agnes in 1972 occurred  today...the newly raised levees in the Wyoming Valley would not provide the level of protection anticipated. In the last 30 years, people have been very busy upstream - and they have not been planting trees and saving wetlands.


Regards,

> Don Williams
> H*******, PA
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "James Gittens" <jgittens@citizensvoice.com>
> To: "Don Williams" <djw@netcarrier.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 9:29 AM
> Subject: Re: Levee Completion
>
>
>> Don:
>> Thanks for your e-mail to The Citizens' Voice.
>> We would like to print it as a letter.
>> Two things:
>> I'm not able to cut and paste the document. Can you send it as the
> body of the e-mail?
>> I need your town and (not for publication) phone number. Can you e-mail them?
>> Thanks.
>> Jim Gittens

**************************************

I think that just about covers it. G'nite.

Post-Flood: The Sights, the Smells, the Sounds.

 
During the summer of 1972, shortly after the floodwaters from Agnes receded, I spent every day as follows:

• Get up, have breakfast, grab shovel, walk from the Mayflower section of Wilkes-Barre to the Gateway Shopping Center in Kingston, former site of the "Million Dollar Dump" ( from the flood of 1936 ).
• Spend the entire day pitching flood-damaged debris out onto the curb working for Herb and Jack ( both fondly remembered as professional gentlemen ) of  HurJax Photo.
• Stop by a home on Loveland Avenue and help a former neighbor clean out the basement of his home.
• Walk back through Public Square, grab some free food and water being supplied by the American Red Cross and others.
• Get home - Run, work out...then crash and burn until the alarm went off the next morning.

I did this every day - 7 days a week - until the two-a-day football practices @ GAR High School began in August.

+ + +

    
I remember the sights, smells and sounds of the flood-devastated Wyoming Valley as if it was yesterday.

• The huge, dead carp and countless other species of fish...bloated & baking in the sun.
• Overturned and mud-covered cars...everywhere.
• The never-ending carpet of dead, crunchy bugs underfoot after the massive spraying of who-knows-what by planes flying overhead.
• The mud...the mud...the mud.
• The gut-wrenching odor of a pail of diapers that had been underwater, in a closet in a basement for over two weeks, before I was able to pitch the rest of the piles of debris to get to them.
• The absolutely heart-breaking sound of a woman sobbing hysterically as we had to destroy her father's water-logged and unsalvageable Steinway piano.

That sound will never be erased from my memory.
 
NEVER.
  
The media free-for-all is only just beginning, and anticipating all the wannabe "experts" that will be popping out of the woodwork for their 15 minutes of fame over the days, weeks and months ahead,  I think this blogger will stand aside and leave the coverage of the aftermath to others.

You see - I've "been there, done that" before many of today's "experts" were even born.

Where the rippling Susquehanna gently, slowly winds its way,

stands our dear old Alma Mater...stands forever and for aye.

Loyal sons and daughters greet thee, greet thee dear old GAR.

As we sing our life's last message, sweetest on our lips will be,

Memories of our days in high school...days that live so rich and free...

LOYAL SONS AND DAUGHTERS, PRAISE THEE.

PRAISE THEE DEAR OLD G....A....R.

Later. I've got a date with my dentist this morning.

Toxic Tommy: Tell Us the TRUTH!

  
Starting last evening on TV & radio, I heard PA Governor Tom Corbett talk about the Susquehanna's floodwaters being toxic, and deftly inferring that sewage treatment plants along the river were somehow the primary and/or only cause of the toxicity.

For those that visit this blog often, you all know how familiar I am with the north branch of the Susquehanna River, especially what's going on in the areas being exploited by the Marcellus Shale drillers. It is a fact that many of the areas used to transfer and/or store materials (toxic chemicals) used for hydrofracturing were flooded and may still be under several feet of water. Additionally, overland stormwater runoff is laden with everything it flows over, around and under.

Tom Corbett knows that as well.

Folks...don't drink the water, and when things start to dry out, don't breathe the dust. The floodwaters may definitely be contaminated with raw sewage, but the toxicity our good governor speaks of may not be limited to what we flush down our drains and toilets.  

Please be safe out there once the waters recede.
     

Susquehanna Flooding: How many more?

  

Photo by Don Williams

My parents survived the floods of 1936, 1972...and thankfully, 2011. I shovelled muck from businesses and homes in the Wyoming Valley during the summer of 1972. From many of the comments online yesterday, it seemed that more than half of those folks weren't even alive when Hurricane Agnes wreaked havoc on the Susquehanna watershed a generation or two ago.

Several of my friends upstream ( near Towanda ) had up to a foot of water on the first floor of their homes, and the water is just starting to recede this morning. In Wilkes-Barre, as of this moment, the levees are holding.

  Hold, baby, hold! 

There will be thousands of articles about the Susquehanna online today. I'll let folks who write for a living cover this issue.

  

  

Susquehanna River: Same Old Same Old...

  

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

And 39+ years earlier...

Several years ago, I wrote a letter to the editor about flooding, continued development within the Susquehanna's watershed, and the probability of continued high(er) water events. I'm pretty sure it's still online, but don't have time to find it this morning as, once again, I have two sump pumps running to keep my basement ( a.k.a. man cave ) - which we just put back together on Sunday - from getting flooded again.

For those that need to know, my home's foundation sits on bedrock, and when the water hits that, it slows down considerably and starts to pool under my basement slab. Earlier this year, we paid a "dirt specialist" to come in and expand our drainage system and create some new swales to move water away from our home more quickly. I think he'll be getting a call in the next day or two.

Off to check the basement...