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Don Spangler, a local car dealer, went out to find a family on the Island Road. Every boat in the community came out to assist with rescues. A special kitchen was set up in Dickey Elementary School to feed the displaced people.Ī sort of rescue center was set up at the corner of Bellefonte Avenue and Jones Street. One woman said that she and her family were caught in chest-high water before being evacuated by boat to the emergency center. Others soon followed, including Woolridge Hall and Bentley Cafeteria at Lock Haven University. The extended care unit at the Lock Haven Hospital, very new at the time, was the first place to be used as an emergency center for evacuated flood refugees. Not completely destroyed, but unsafe enough that the authorities closed them to travel. In the lowest levels downtown, the floods were about eight feet above street level.Ĭastanea and Flemington were both somewhat cut off, with the bridges weakened. The flood waters seem to have stopped at Jones Street, everything below that being covered. The newspaper reported that, so far, no one had been actually injured. On Friday morning, after the waters rose, a man on Walnut Street refused to be evacuated from his house, firing a rifle at anyone who tried. Here in Lock Haven, we reacted the way we always do: With a sense of competence and adventure, and a hint of insanity. The Express reported, “The flood took a number of lives in the Rote-Salona-Mill Hall area.” Fishing Creek overflowed in the most damage since the 1889 Flood, and two bridges over Fishing Creek were washed out. Initially, Mill Hall was the hardest community hit, taking on 31.3 feet of water. It began to come over the bank on the east end, near Piper Airport. Hurricane Agnes hit Clinton County on June 22, and between 10 and 11 a.m., the river banks at Lock Haven were filled at 21 feet of water. There was some speculation that it was going to change course before it got to central Pennsylvania, but it did not. The hurricane came up the coast, basically hitting a whole bunch of places as it got closer.
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If I’d realized I’d be writing about it half a century later, I’d have taken more notes. It happened 50 years ago, and at the time, I was three years old and trapped on a farm in Montgomery County.