BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- The images, overwhelming and unforgettable. Streets transformed into rivers, homes under water, neighbors forced out, families with a lifetime of memories left destroyed on the sidewalk.
It was 10 years ago when heavy rains swept across the Southern Tier and northern Pennsylvania, causing the Susquehanna River to spill over its banks. The flood devastated many communities, in particular the small town of Conklin in Broome County. Then, five short years later, Tropical Storm Lee left more destruction in its wake. Communities that were still recovering from the last flood found themselves once again struggling to pick up the pieces.
But these floods are not stories of loss. They’re stories of resilience, of the spirit of neighbors who banded together, determined to come back stronger than ever.
In 2006, floodwaters washed away beauty at places like Schnurbusch Park in Conklin, replaced by devastation -- the first of two floods in five years in the region. But, just as the beauty eventually returned, so too did the people who call the Twin Tiers home.
A Journey to Rebuild
Reported by Camille DeLongis
Reminders of the massive flood waters that ravaged parts of the Southern Tier still remain today with empty lots in neighborhoods that used to be filled by homes and blighted structures.
When the rivers rose in 2006, several areas in Broome County Areas faced devastating effects.
"Houses almost falling over. People in there working to save their belongings, with no water, no nothing,” current Town of Vestal Supervisor John Schaffer recalled.
In 2011, the damage was even more widespread as water poured into homes it had never reached before.
"I lost all the walls inside, ceilings, came down because of the moisture because it stayed in the house,” said Paul Messemer, a Vestal homeowner. “I was one of the last houses to get pumped out. I had an extensive car collection and junk that I collected over the years and I got a big shop out back and it had 6 feet of water in the shop and that was really, really hard to deal with and it still is hard to deal with to this day."
Many people packed up what belongings they still had and moved -- their homes were torn down. But some people, like Messemer, chose to stay, and rebuild.
"We had some people from different church organizations down here every day after they let us back in here,” he said in an interview this month. “They brought hot meals down, they were very helpful. I had a couple of good friends of mine, in fact one I hadn't even seen in 15 years showed up here to help me."
Residents say that while it was one of the most tragic times this area has seen, everyone rallied together to support each other and rebuild.
“There were relief efforts, you know did they need clothes, did they need food,” said former Broome County Executive Barbara Fiala. “It was all the churches -- they were all brought together with one common goal. Some lost everything – everything -- so there were donations there was relief. Some people just rolled up their sleeves to help their neighbor."
And because of that support, the community says they're stronger than ever.
Some in the region were met by both a change at home, and their home away from home. The floods of 2006 and 2011 drastically changed the routine so many children fall into when they attend school. But through rebuilding, the damage rising waters caused showed how communities can come together to build an even better education for their kids.
Schools Get a Lesson in Floods
Reported by Brittani Moncrease
It's like a maze with an end finally in sight.
“Unless you're experiencing the same thing, you don't know." MacArthur Elementary School Principal Marie McIver said.
"After going through all of that devastation, we were able to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Owego Elementary School Principal Laurie McKeveny.
The 100-year flood of 2006, destroyed homes, churches, and businesses, and places like MacArthur Elementary School in Binghamton suffered some losses, but not as much as others.
"The only damage that was done was to the special services area. There was another area next to that. So that had to be repaired,” McIver said.
But still, the school used that flood experience as a lesson.
"It was then that they decided that they needed to be proactive in the event that another disaster occurred,” said McIver.
The school began storing files electronically and even built a flood wall, but those measures were not enough to face what would come just five years later.
"I remember coming down Vestal Ave. here and I just looked, and what I saw was a line of students, parents, crying. They were in shock,” McIver said in an interview this month.
The river had risen and more than 40 inches of water entered the school.
Meanwhile, just a little over 20 miles away, another school, Owego Elementary, fought the same battle.
"It was the first day of school. My children were here. The rain was pouring down and about midday, I realized it was going to be awful,” said Owego Elementary School psychologist Robyn Wood.
The conditions were unbearable.
"There was no power. There was no fresh water. The whole village had been flooded -- 95 percent of the businesses in town were under water,” said Owego-Apalachin Central School District Superintendent William Russell.
"My church was flooded. My house was flooded. My in-laws' house was flooded. We lost a car. It was pretty devastating,” Wood said.
But that was only the beginning. Students from both Owego and MacArthur Elementary were spread out across the districts. They attended schools in separate buildings until their new facilities were built.
Owego Elementary filled in their land to raise the property, while MacArthur built up.
"Mandates have changed, so hallways for example needed to be wider than they were in our old school. We needed more special ed rooms,” said Laurie McKeveny, the Owego school’s principal.
With larger facilities equipped with new playgrounds, bigger classrooms and reading spaces, students say they are pleased with their new schools and glad to be home.
"The new school is awesome. It's really big. We have great teachers, great classrooms,” said Owego fifth grader Victoria Fabi.
But relief of a new school doesn't mean the emotional recovery is over.
"We did have a lot of kids, especially that first year that were pretty traumatized,” Wood said. “To this day, every time we get a very heavy rain storm or the river gets high, you could still see the looks on
"For my first graders who are now my fifth graders, I look at them and go, 'What they've been through. What they've been through,’” said McIver, the MacArthur principal.
When that final bell rings, children are in search of new outlets, seeking relief on playing fields and after-school centers. But, for a time, they quite literally couldn’t find those fields beneath the water.
No Place to Play
Reported by Vince Briga
Great futures start here.
It's the first thing you see when you walk into the Boys and Girls Club of Western Broome Family Center in Endicott and it's a motto it has lived by for generations.
Walk inside today, and you'll find children enjoying the club's newly remodeled game room or maybe playing a game of basketball.
But it wasn't always that way.
When the Susquehanna River rose in both 2006 and 2011, major flooding forced the center to close, leaving many children without their after-school gathering place.
"A lot of kids don't have anywhere else to go,” said the center’s executive director, Rick Materese. “They feel safe here. They can come here, they can get into our programs, they can do things here and feel safe and that's the biggest thing."
While the center was originally constructed on stilts, that didn't stop water from nearly reaching the first level, and destroying the electrical system.
For the next two months, the center would be closed, leaving children without a place to go.
"Kids are resilient but they're also fragile when you change things on them,” Materese said. “It takes them a while to come back and so this 'I'm okay here,’ they can be safe here, and so when you take that away, that can be traumatic."
Just up the hill at Union-Endicott High School, the water downed out the goal posts on the football field, and rose nearly above the scoreboard.
It was a similar scene in 2011, leading to the construction of a flood wall, and a new turf field. School Athletic Director Josh Gannon said it was important to rebuild as quickly as possible.
"We try to provide opportunities to keep kids connected to positive things after school so we partner up in a lot of different things with the Boys and Girls Club, and we feel like we are directly related to the overall education of all of our students,” Gannon said.
The Boys and Girls Club would go on to install modern electrical equipment and new doors to protect that area from any water in the future.
It was a difficult time for the center, but out of the tragedy, came a tremendous showing of community support that has helped these build new walls and a support system to ensure these crucial programs are never put in jeopardy again.
"It was a hard time, but you know, our staff all came together. We all pitched in beyond the hours of the regular day, weekends, cleaning up,” said Mario Salati, the center’s former executive director.
River Knows No Boundary
Reported by Megan Zhang
The border between the states was not enough to protect northern Pennsylvania from the rising waters.
Neighborhoods in Sayre looks pretty different than it did before the floods of 2006 and 2011, and a lot of the old faces aren't here anymore.
"When you have 7 feet of water in your first floor, everything is just gone, destroyed. What happened was a lot of them simply sold the house,” said Valley Relief Council co-founder Daniel Polinski.
For those who stayed after the 2011 flood, local residents banded together to form the Valley Relief Council to help rebuild homes.
"We had help come from not only our local communities but from far away, faith-based groups who came and really assisted in getting people back into their homes,” he said. “That was hugely important for getting this community up and running again.”
Volunteers from as far as Hawaii and Chicago came to help flood relief efforts and many locals also donated furniture, and nearby restaurants brought free food.
"[They] asked us if we could do away with some food, well, we ended up volunteering and donating the food,” said Michelle Lane, the restaurant manager at Beeman’s. “And I think it was rewarding in the end, and we're all still friends over that."
Now that the people of Sayre and Athens have been through two floods together, they know they'll help each other out if it ever happens again.
"We're far better off in terms of what we know has to happen as soon as the flood occurs, what we know of the long-term impacts and how you deal with that, and having at least the human resources in place to be able to deal with that kind of a problem again,” Polinski said.
And while the flood was devastating, it brought the community together in a way that only hardship can.
"A lot of people came together in the darkest hours and helped each other and did a lot of things, and I think made life-long friends,” said Lane.
To Stay or Leave
Reported by Trish Kilgannon
When you own a business along the Susquehanna River, now you know it could flood, but 10 years ago, business owners from Owego to Endwell say they never knew the damage that was possible.
"Back in 2006, this is the first time we were affected this dramatically with the flood. We really didn't know it was coming,” said Glen Grasso, the owner of Endwell Rug.
In 2006 and 2011, Endwell Rug suffered major damage from the rising river, making sponges out of rugs.
But with resilience and help from the community, the company cleaned out both times and reopened in the same spot it's been in for three generations.
"Well we had a lot of people beside our employees here and volunteered some time to help us. We greatly appreciate it,” Grasso said. “They chipped in and did what they had to do, so everybody was helping us out."
Through this tragedy came a boost in business for Endwell Rug. As the community rebuilt, the company provided homeowners new flooring.
"It's kind of a blessing in disguise. It is a tragic thing when you get flooded and people have to close their houses down or they have to move, that's the unfortunate situation here,” said Grasso. “But we were here to help them and whatever we could do we would do for them."
Up the river in Owego, a decades-old bookstore also filled up with water, and carrying soggy books from the basement was not easy, but that was just the beginning.
Riverow Bookshop had to rebuild from its foundation up.
"[Our columns] were brick before and now they are concrete, cinderblock and rebar. And we had to jack the building up,” said John Spencer, the store’s vice president.
Without hesitation, the bookstore renovated its basement, dried out the foundation and restocked its library. In a couple of weeks, the store was open again.
"I never thought about not doing it. We bounded back. The businesses are good and solid in Owego. There are very few vacancies, so that's a good sign and we bounded back as a community,” Spencer said.
The bookstore and the neighboring businesses on Front Street have seen the dangers of working in a flood zone.
"We need to respect the river. It does what it wants to do and there’s not much we can do. Because we're so close, we can’t build a wall,” Spencer said. “So it's just something we have to live with."
Endwell Rug, Riverow Bookshop and many other businesses along the Susquehanna now know the power of the river, but now they also know the community is stronger and rebuilding is possible.
When the Hospital Becomes the Patient
Reported by Tina Yazdani
Inside Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton, everything is as it should be -- lives are being saved and patients receive treatment.
But, there are some scars this hospital can't heal.
"We had people who actually thought ‘Lourdes will never open again,” said Anne Wolanski, vice president of risk management at the hospital. “That never occurred to us.”
Wolanski was working at Lourdes hospital 10 years ago when flood waters swallowed up and destroyed the entire first floor of the building.
"I'm walking through the ground floor with boots up to my knees and taking pictures. It was like walking through the Titanic. Just unbelievable,” Wolanski said. “I just remember walking through and trying to encourage the staff -- they were just so determined that they could keep it going."
As the hours passed, the waters rose and it became clear the hospital would be forced to evacuate the 150 patients staying at Lourdes at the time.
EMS crews from the surrounding area were called in to shepherd everyone to safety.
"I'll never forget that time. That coordination, everyone, all-hands-on-deck, making sure no one was left behind, that every room was checked, that our ER was empty and that people were safely transferred,” said Linda Miller, Lourdes Hospital senior vice president of operations.
Within only 10 days, the hospital re-opened, the flood damage was repaired and patients welcomed back.
Then, just five years later, the region was walloped again. But this time, the hospital was prepared --protected from the outside by a flood wall.
"I think the hospital in 2011 was like, 'Oh my God, will the flood wall work?' Because if you look back at pictures, there was even more rain at that time, more significant flooding, and our community had a more devastating outcome than the flood of 2006," Miller said.
Flood waters on September 8, 2011 rose about 4 feet.
The wall surrounding Lourdes’ Riverside Drive campus – 6 feet tall. Its completion date: July 2011.
“We were really happy, obviously, just to think that we had that protection, and then of course it was the real test: Is that going to do? Is that going to be the answer?" Wolanski said.
It was. The hospital wasn't impacted at all, and this time, hospital staff was able to support their community in a time of need.
"It allows us to be a resource and a haven for those people who are affected,” Wolanski said.
Now well-prepared to handle similar situations in the future, hospital staff said it never hurts to get a check-up.
"You always have to be thinking -- what's our next vulnerability?" Wolanski said.
Thinking About Again
Reported by Camille DeLongis
Record high flood waters inundated parts of the Southern Tier in 2006, displacing homeowners and ruining businesses and schools.
"My memory, very stark memory, was driving down Clinton Street, and if you know Clinton Street, it's always busy, day or night. And it was just, you couldn't see anybody there,” said former County Executive Barbara Fiala.
Broome County Emergency Services worked to relocate thousands evacuated from their homes.
At the time, Michael Ponticiello was a critical care technician for the Vestal Emergency Squad. He recalls rushing to help patients at Castle Gardens Nursing Home.
"They were making decisions that, it's going to flood, we have to go now, and otherwise we're not going to be able to go. And sure enough in a few hours it was underwater,” said Ponticiello, now deputy director for Broome County Emergency Services.
After the 500 year flood in 2006, Broome County's emergency services had several advancements that would make dealing with future flooding easier.
In 2011, the same towns, and many more, suffered the same unfortunate fate again.
By then, Ponticiello had taken on his role as deputy director with the county.
"We had a little bit more notice, we also had some improvements with our GIS capability so we were able to do some mapping of inundations, so if a river is going to reach this height, we can say okay it's going to flood area,” he said.
While the county was more prepared in 2011, there was still devastating effects, causing some people to lose everything.
Following that, Broome County partnered with United Way, who runs 2-1-1, as a tool to push information out to the public.
"Where do I go to get clothing, and where do I go to get essential things for everyday living, and 2-1-1 handles all that,” said Ponticiello.
Officials also took steps to help strategically rebuild homes, and tear down those that were in danger of getting severely flooded again.
Ponticiello said it's not a matter of if the river will flood again -- it's a matter of when. And when it does, officials won't be able to stop the water, but after going through the experience of two major floods, the community will be more prepared to deal with the consequences.
"You know we're allowing the river to do what it was designed to do, which is going to flood every few years, that's just a natural part and cycle of it,” he said.