Bill O’Boyle

Bill O’Boyle

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WILKES-BARRE — The look on Jim Brozena’s face said it all.

Brozena, who in September of 2011 was the executive director of the Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority, had come out of a meeting at the Luzerne County Emergency Management headquarters on Water Street.

When he looked my way, he rolled his eyes, as if to say, “We have a major problem.”

And it appeared we did.

Brozena had just learned that the gauge that was supposed to be accurately measuring the depth of the rising Susquehanna River was off — by a lot.

So instead of feeling somewhat comfortable about the situation, Brozena’s look told me that we were in the throes of an Agnes-like situation. Agnes, you recall, arrived in June 1972, and the river rose so high, the pressure blew a few holes in the levee system and the Wyoming Valley was inundated; the Susquehanna River was a mile wide in a matter of minutes.

And here we were again, some 39 years later.

Brozena and the county emergency management team and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had to go out and assess the situation to see just how bad it was.

And it was bad.

Not only had the river risen above Agnes numbers, there were areas where the levees were boiling up — evidence that there may be another Agnes-like flood on the horizon.

However, the levees held, despite immense, never-seen-before river measurements that had to put tremendous pressure on those levees. And quick work given to address those “boils,” especially one in Forty Fort where it looked very grim, the levees held.

I can still see that caravan of dump trucks heading over the North Cross Valley Expressway on their way to that situation in Forty Fort, thanks to local businessman Rob Mericle.

In 1972, the river level reached 41.09 feet — in 2011, the river level reached 42.66 feet.

Brozena said work on the levee raising began in 1972 — post Agnes — and was completed in 2005 at a cost north of $200 million. And the new, improved system has worked, even when it was severely tested in September of 2011 when the Susquehanna River rose to those record depths.

“The levees saved this community in 2011 from the same position we saw in 1972,” Brozena said. “I believe the value of the protected area was estimated at $2 billion.”

Did you get that? Had those improved levees not held and we had another Agnes-like flood, the estimated damage that would have occurred would have reached $2 billion!

A couple of days after the September 2011 situation receded, to use a flood term, Brozena leaned on a guard rail outside the Luzerne County Emergency Management Agency office and basked in the warm sunlight of a Saturday morning.

Brozena was looking to relieve some of the stress of the previous two days when the Susquehanna River threatened to inundate Wyoming Valley. He knew now that the $250 million levee system held up under extreme pressure.

“The situation in Forty Fort was serious,” Brozena said. “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has photos that will clearly show why people should not hesitate when we issue an evacuation notice.”

On a Friday afternoon Brozena and other emergency management personnel and elected officials huddled in a small office at the EMA. At that meeting they became aware of just how serious the situation was.

“We’re out of the woods now,” Brozena said. “But for a long time Friday, we didn’t know if the dike was going to hold in Forty Fort. But the levee system held. They performed remarkably well considering the river had risen well beyond the designed capacity of the system.”

A lot of water’

During that 2011 conversation, Brozena said he was looking at the photos taken by the Army Corps early Friday that showed water — a lot of water — in places that it shouldn’t be with the river at 38.8 feet.

“As I was looking at the photos, I could see where the water was and I could tell something was not adding up — it wasn’t making sense,” Brozena said. “We have been at 35 feet before and we had never had any serious problems. Now we were being told that we had just 3 more feet and all sorts of things were breaking loose. We couldn’t understand it until we got the actual river readings.”

He said it was soon learned that the river gauge that measures the depth of the Susquehanna River was broken. He said he consulted other agencies — including the U.S. Geological Service — and discovered the river had actually crested at 42.66 feet — more than a foot and a half above the “design capacity” of 41 feet.

Brozena then explained that the levee system has a built-in free board or buffer zone — an approximate 3-foot “safety zone” — on top of the 41-foot design capacity, making the actual capacity 44 feet, which explains why the river did not top the dikes.

“The design capacity is the key,” he said. “That’s what the levee is designed to handle. The additional 3 feet is built in to handle wave actions and debris and such.”

Brozena, when asked if he knew the levees could handle more than 41 feet, said: “We do now. When the river got to that point, that’s why we were so concerned about the system. This was new territory for us and for the levee system, and we came through it intact.”

Brozena said the pressure exerted by the high water on the levee was extreme.

“You can’t imagine how much more pressure 2 additional feet of water brings to that system,” Brozena said.

He said the 2011 river levels exceeded the largest flood of record for the region by 1.8 feet.

Brozena was breathing easier on that Saturday in 2011, and he was excited to talk about lifting the evacuation — about people returning to their homes. He said the towns that experienced flooding have a long road ahead and the county will do what it can to secure funding from the state and federal governments.

It was Saturday afternoon and Brozena was looking for a transistor radio. He and his wife, Jackie, are graduates of Penn State University and Brozena was hoping to at least be able to keep track of the Nittany Lions in their battle against Alabama.

“We still have a lot of work to do here,” he said.

But Brozena basked in the sunshine of this day and the relief of knowing what could have happened did not.

Reach Bill O’Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle, or email at [email protected].