Local Commentary

COMMENTARY

September 16

Response to 2011 flooding, like Agnes, a test of our mettle COMMENTARY Chris Ritchie

FOR GENERATIONS of Wyoming Valley residents, “Agnes” provided a lasting benchmark in our lives.

In a practical sense, the amount of water damage our properties sustained during that June 1972 tropical storm helped determine how we reacted to subsequent flooding threats.

But it was our response to the devastation of Agnes that determined the true measure of our community.

Back then, as the flood waters approached, individuals and institutions opened their doors to those people who were displaced. As the water receded, and area residents returned to their homes (some to discover they no longer even had a home), neighbors helped each other muddle through – serving to cement our reputation as “the Valley with a heart.”

In the weeks after the flood, the mounds of sodden belongings pushed curbside yielded to upbeat placards proclaiming, “Rebuild, we will.” Community leaders, determined to prevent a reoccurrence of such magnitude, began the long, expensive bureaucratic battle that led to the creation of our current levee system.

How will our response to last week’s record-breaking flood measure up?

• Will we learn from the systemic weaknesses exposed by the unprecedented assault of water and make improvements? Or, will the lessons be lost to political infighting and finger-pointing?

• Once the initial rush of goodwill subsides, will we continue to provide needed assistance to those flood victims living in communities not within immediate eyesight?

• Will we work to provide answers to the uncomfortable questions regarding the impact of the Wyoming Valley levee-raising and other construction upon up- and down-river communities?

• Amid this struggling economy, can we somehow marshal adequate financial resources to help individuals and businesses recover? And when that recovery funding does arrive, can we resist the temptation to engage in the kind of fraud that marred some post-Agnes efforts and ensure the money ends up serving those who truly need the help?

• Will our elected officials exhibit the political courage to either fund the expensive expansion of the levee system or convince those living in unprotected areas that they must abandon their cherished communities?

Yes, September 2011 will long be remembered as the time the Susquehanna River surpassed the frightening level witnessed during Agnes.

But, will the recent flooding serve only as a literal high-water mark of 42.66 feet? Or, will it come to symbolize a more figurative “high-water mark,” a time when the community rose to meet the challenges stemming from such painful devastation?

Our response today will serve to answer that question for generations to come.

Chris Ritchie, of Wilkes-Barre, is a senior journalism lecturer in the College of Communications at the University Park campus of Penn State and former development editor at The Times Leader.

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