Scott's+Final+Project

Local Data, Documents and Cartoons 3-D-2

1. [] This goverment document shows the amount of rainfall to hit the eastern seaboard in this timeframe. I am located in northeast PA and the rainfall to our north is what greatly affected our area and caused the major flooding. The five to seven inch totals in the short period of time is what caused the river to quickly fill and then overflow. The thirty-seventh anniversary was on June 21.

2. [] This document shows the day to day progression of the rain over the time period of six days. You can click on the maps to enlarge them to get a better idea of how much rain occured. The map on the far right if you click it shows an area of 10 inch rainfall. That rainfall made its way to the Susquehanna River which is the river that flooded.

3. [] This is a paper written about the 1972 flood and the amounts of rainfall that some areas had. Scroll down and you can see the 1972 dollar amounts and the death toll for the flood. The article talks about how widespread the damage was to the state of Pennsylvania. Then President Nixon declared the whole state a disaster area. I have to double check on this but I am pretty sure he came to see the damage in the Wilkes-Barre area.

4. [] This is a document about the flood and how it affected the western part of Pennsylvania.

5. [] This document describes the flood in the town of Benton which was an area of somewhat higher ground that became a dumping area for all the debris in the areas hit by the flood.

4. 4-D-1 Local Photos and Posters 1. [] It was the 37 year anniversary of the flood this past June 21 and the local newspaper had some interesting interviews and a few pictures to go along with the story.

2. [] These pictures show you the damage done by the flood. It is amazing to see the water up to the second floor and roof of some houses.

3. [] This picture is downtown Wilkes-Barre leading to the public square in the backgroud of the photo. Those of you on the east coast might be familiar with the colleges of Wilkes University and King's College that are located in Wilkes Barre. This might give you a reference to the picture.

4. This gives you a great visual of how the storm tracked and kind of went westward into New York state and then stalled giving the heavy amounts of rain that then filtered into the Susquehanna River.

5. [] This map gives you a visual of the track of the storm. I tried to zoom into the northeast PA area to get a better pictures but had some difficulty. I tried to find posters of the area after the flood but no luck. I tried Red Cross and Salvation Army sites thinking there were posters to help with the cleanup but did not find anything. If anyone has any sites that I can try I would appreciate it.

5-D-1 Audio Recordings and Music 1. []

This is a audio story of a man remembering the "visitor" he had on his birthday.

2. media type="file" key="StoryCorps___Flaherty__Proper__Denson_part_1.mp3"[] This audio file is an interview with newspaper and radio reporters that covered the flood in the Elmira area. It was put into three sections because the file was too large.

3. []

media type="file" key="Busch_Audio.wav" This is a flood PSA with Kyle Bush, NASCAR Champion. Surprisingly many residents stayed in their homes even after evacuation orders were given. This accounted for many of the deaths.

4. [] media type="file" key="flood-awareness-podcast-03-29-2006.mp3" This file is about flood safety and flood insurance. Many people in the Wilkes-Barre area had no flood insurance before the flood, at the time there had been no major flooding since 1936. A story is told that people had fire insurance and set their buildings on fire when the sirens went off to signal the flood waters had come over the dike. You will see some buildings on fire in some of the pictures listed above.

5. [] This is one of the albums that was a top seller in 1972, with the song American Pie going to number one in the charts for a few weeks. Click on listen to samples to hear a little of the song that I'm sure was played during the cleanup of the flood.

6-D-1 Local Video and Maps

1. []

A man recalls seeing a man drown in the high water from the storm Agnes.

2. []

Great explanation of the storm, just click on the picture of the hurricane and then click on Agnes for the explanation. This show is based at Penn State University.

3. []

Red Cross video asking for ten million dollars to help with the relief effort.

4. []

Video taken of Susquehanna River at a town just outside of Harrisburg, the state capital.

5. []

This is a map of the Middle Susquehanna River Basin which Wilkes-Barre is a part of. You can see all the trubutaries to the north that added to the river total. This increased the flooding all along the river all the way to the Chesapeake Bay area.