James Caravan recalls how the waters of the Schuylkill River flooded their banks in Schuylkill Haven 40 years ago and covered West Main Street.
"I had nowhere to go. It was literally up to my waist when I passed the area of where the A&P store used to be," Caravan said Wednesday.
The A&P is now Boyer's Food Markets.
He was 18 when Hurricane Agnes struck in June 1972. He'd just graduated from Schuylkill Haven High School and he said the only reason he went out in the rain was to check on his grandmother to make sure she was OK. The walk home was memorable.
"The water was coming in the back door of the A&P. They had to open their front door to let the water come out, and they were busy taking the groceries off the lower shelves and putting them on the upper shelves," said Caravan, now an attorney in the borough.
More than 10 inches of rain fell in central Pennsylvania over a four-day period between June 20 and 24, 1972, flooding every stream and river in Schuylkill County, along with streets and businesses.
It caused landslides, evacuations and damage in the state which, if measured in today's economy, would come to $16.5 billion, according to the website for the National Weather Service, State College.
Nationwide, there were 122 deaths attributed to Agnes, including 50 in Pennsylvania. Total damages from the storm reached more than $3 billion nationwide, with more than $2 billion in losses occurring in the Susquehanna River basin, according to the NWS website.
David Derbes, Pottsville, witnessed the wrath of Hurricane Agnes and photos of the devastation still make him wince.
"You were helpless. There was nothing you could do," he said, recalling how the constant rain put everyone in Schuylkill County on edge.
Derbes is president of the Historical Society of Schuylkill County, Pottsville. On Tuesday, he pulled out the file on the disaster to observe the anniversary. The photos, many of which were from The Pottsville REPUBLICAN, record the devastation.
They show walls of water washing away earth and knocking down power lines and transformers in Middleport; pools flooding businesses and soaking stacks of cardboard boxes at the former Aetna Steel plant in Pottsville; rescue workers using boats to traverse the Schuylkill River as it spilled onto West Main Street in Schuylkill Haven; a steady stream rolling down the Broad Mountain road to Beury's Grove, around an overturned tractor-trailer.
Caravan had pictures showing how the waters of the Schuylkill tickled the underside of the Columbia Street Bridge. Normally, the river bed is about 15 feet from the top of the bridge, Caravan said as he walked over the bridge Wednesday.
While other natural disasters have pelted Schuylkill County since then, Agnes may be still be considered the worst.
On June 26, 1972, the Army Corps of Engineers estimated flood damage in Schuylkill County was $5.5 million. At today's value, that would come to more than $30 million.
By comparison, the Flood of 2006, which ravaged the region from June 26 to 30, 2006, caused about $20 million in damage in the county, according to published reports.
Agnes rose from the south, making its first appearance in the northwest Caribbean Sea on June 11, 1972, according to the website for the National Weather Service's Hydrometeorological Prediction Center at www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov.
"A polar front dropped into the region from the northwest. As the front approached, a depression formed over the Yucatan on the 14th and moved eastward into the northwest Caribbean Sea. The system strengthened into a tropical storm during the night of the 15th, and a hurricane on the 18th as it moved northward in the Gulf of Mexico. Moving into the Florida panhandle as a hurricane, the system quickly weakened into a tropical depression as it moved through Georgia on the 20th," according to the site.
On June 22, 1972, all rivers and creeks in Schuylkill County flooded. That included the Swatara Creek in Pine Grove, as waters rose more than 12 feet in some areas, forcing about 150 people to evacuate, according to the archives of The Pottsville REPUBLICAN.
Dave McSurdy, Wayne Township, a local historian, said the power of Mother Nature can never be underestimated.
At the time he was 35, living in Minersville, and was a social studies and science teacher for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students at Our Lady of Mount Carmel School in Minersville.
"Out beyond Newtown, the force of the water was so great, it wiped an entire coal bank out and it caused Middle Creek to go underground and come out really far below it. That's pretty impressive, when you think about it. A big flow of water coming against the bank and blasting the whole hill away and causing the water to go into the stripping and then underground," McSurdy said.
To repair the area, the state had to build a new channel for the stream, he said.
Schuylkill County Commissioner Gary Hess said Tuesday he was 14 when Agnes roared through the region and he was living in Saint Clair.
"I remember Mill Creek went over its walls. There was a lot of water. I can't remember what streets," Hess said.
Waters had washed out South Front Street and a portion of the former Burlington Homes parking lot south of the borough was washed away June 22, 1972, according to a photo published in the June 24, 1972, edition of The Pottsville REPUBLICAN.
"After the flood, in Saint Clair, I remember they built up the walls of where the creek is. They build them a little bit higher," Hess said.
Derbes said after more than 8 inches of rain had fallen, the Tumbling Run Dam near Pottsville began to overflow.
That was especially alarming, according to Caravan.
"In September 1850, there were three straight days of rain and the Tumbling Run Dam broke and it sent millions of gallons all of a sudden down the valley. It devastated Schuylkill Haven. I don't have the statistics but there were quite a few deaths," Caravan said.
In 1972, Derbes was 35 and the owner of a Honda motorcycle dealership on Route 61 south of Mount Carbon. It was near the bank of the Schuylkill River and downhill from the dam.
A sinking feeling teased his guts.
"I couldn't stop the river from rising. There was nothing I could do about the reservoir. I was afraid to stay there. The river was coming up and we had no idea what was going to happen, and they told us to 'get out' because they weren't sure what was going to happen," Derbes said.
Stuart J. "Stu" Richards, a historian and author from Orwigsburg, said Monday he was 22 was living in Palo Alto at the time:
"I had just gotten discharged from the Air Force and I remember climbing up the mountain, the Pally Mountain, in the rain and seeing the Tumbling Run Dam. The water was really high ... Growing up around this area, you never saw the dam that filled."
Agnes didn't topple the Tumbling Run Dam but it changed the way the region viewed its waterways and added a few new words into its vocabulary, like "floodplain," Caravan said.
"After Agnes, the army corps of engineers came through and surveyed the Schuylkill River to establish just where the floodplains were. Before that there were no flood maps or anything. So that's where they came from," Caravan said.
Subsequent construction added walls and earthen mounds along the river, which was also thoroughly dredged in the years after the flood that is still strong in the county's memory.