![]() Those who wish to share written memories, show us surviving ephemera, also are encouraged to bring them to our office at 352 Sixth St. We will take the utmost care of your photos and offer nothing but respect for your rembrances of this devastating time. Knowing that most photos of the era are not digital, we ask that you allow us to borrow them long enough to scan for use in the book. But we ask you to share them with us, allow us to share them with the community at large. More than 100,000 people had to flee their homes, many of which saw water at second-floor levels.Īs with our other remembrances of the Juniata Valley’s past, we want our readers to help tell the story in their words and with their photographs, to preserve the history for future generations. The $3 billion it caused in damage nationwide also was felt most severely in the Keystone state – some $2 billion, which translates into nearly $18 billion in current value. Of the nearly 130 people who died in the flood, which impacted states from Florida to New York, 50 were Pennsylvanians. No other community in the river basin that includes the Juniata and Susquehanna rivers saw water rise that far above flood stage. Lewistown was the hardest hit of Juniata River communities, as the river crested at 42.1 feet – more than 19 feet above flood stage. Riverbanks were quickly swollen and the water had no place to go. To the east, it was far worse – Lewistown sustained 12 inches of rain, Harrisburg 15 inches and the top rainfall was measured in Schuylkill County: 18 inches. How bad was Agnes? A small rainfall over the 72 hours she battered our communities measured 7 inches, in Johnstown. In Lewistown, it was the beginning of the end of American Viscose Corp., among the largest employers in the area. ![]() Still, we were among the lucky – the worst we saw was a few feet of water in the basement and several days without power (some in our state had no electricity for three months!). By the time the rain let up, the shoreline was less than a block away. Our home, in the northern end of Selinsgrove, was four blocks from Penns Creek and more than half a mile from the Susquehanna. For me, a young lad who had moved less than a year before from a town that had no significant water flow, it was at first adventurous but eventually scary.
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