(erielack) Hurricane Diane...Part3

["KS3YLiam_@_aol.com"]

This is the third installment of the Hurricane Diane chapter...I will be
sending the 4th installment this weekend...I separated the west side of the
Poconos (Elmhurst to Scranton)from the east side (Gouldsboro...Mt.Pocono...and
on to the Gap, + Pt. Jervis)because it got too bulky, and about a zillion
people are waiting with bated breath for the Poconos section, so I want to
reverify all of my facts before I post it...
Thanks!
Bill Gallagher

The Damage (continued)   This is a continuation of part 2 in a four part
series.

The energy expended in smashing culvert had been enough to slow the wall of
water down to the point where much of the material suspended within was
deposited on the 'creekbed'. Unfortunately, the creekbed at the moment
consisted of the area between the Erie Car Shops on the east and the
demolished culvert on the west and everywhere between the Petersburg Silk
Mill, the DL&W roadbed, and John Avenue. The entire Little England section was
buried beneath six to ten feet of mud, silt, culm, roadbed, ties, tracks,
rolling stock, crushed homes and industries…you name it, it was piled up in
this square mile area.

The lighter parts of the mess…mostly more silt and lighter dirt, remained
trapped in the water. It was this thinner mixture that was to travel on
towards the confluence of the Roaring Brook and the Lackawanna River…

The flow of the water had been dammed somewhat by the mess at the culvert.
This allowed the water on the Petersburg side of the tunnel to rise so high
that it actually flowed THROUGH the Nay Aug tunnels…a full forty feet above
the normal creekbed!

The waterfall created by the water exiting the tunnel bores crashed down on
the west end of the culvert…eventually washing all of the material around it
away, and allowing the release of the flood waters trapped on the other side.
While this may have taken only fifteen or twenty minutes, it was enough to
slow the flow of rushing water to a less lethal level.

The creekbed was deeper, and the banks further apart beyond the tunnels. This
was due in no small part to the damming of the stream before the turn of the
century by the Lackawanna Iron and Steel Works at their steel mill for cooling
water needed in the steel-making process. (Scranton was the steel capitol of
the world until the end of the nineteenth century, pre-dating Pittsburgh by
forty-odd years).

The Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley -better known as the 'Laurel Line'-had
purchased much of the mill's land, and placed their station, car shops, and
powerhouse on the original mill foundations. Since their Dunmore branch ran up
the opposite side of the creek, no additional development had taken place in
this stretch. This proved fortuitous to the L&WV. The water simply roared
along at bank full levels, sparing the financially strapped road's physical
plant. The minor damage to the powerhouse was of no concern, since the
electricity had been turned off in 1952, and leased DL&W diesels now prowled
the right-of-way. The undercutting of the bridge to the South-Side tunnel
(about a mile long, directly below the heavily populated Nativity and Crown
Hill sections of Scranton) was a little more troublesome.


Below the Laurel Line plant, however, was a different story. The west end of
the Steel works had been purchased by the DL&W for their steam locomotive
erecting shops. A massive, six-story high, two-block long concrete wall
supported the South wall of the sprawling complex. The original path of the
Roaring Brook had been diverted when this structure was poured. Instead of
piping the run-off water to the new creekbed, the engineers had used a far
more cost-efficient method of drainage…they angled the wall with a thirty-
degree upsweep (think dam), and placed drainage outlets at various heights
above the 'ground' level. This was fine unless very heavy rains occurred. When
that happened, water would dam up behind the wall, and would sometimes pour
from behind the wall for weeks after a heavy storm.

Hurricane Connie had drenched the area on the weekend preceding Diane, and,
much to the dismay of the Hoffman Corporation (who had purchased the complex
from the Lackawanna at the demise of the steam-era), parts of the wall
collapsed from the weight of the waters behind it. One huge crane was leased
from the Lackawanna, another from Dunmore Iron, and repairs were being
undertaken when the rain began to fall on Thursday afternoon.

There is no stopping a flash flood. Unlike the slow rise of big-river floods,
a flash flood rises faster and travels faster, smashing everything in its
wake. Even though the brunt of the flood had been dissipated in the Nay Aug
Gorge, there was still a tremendous rush of water hurtling down the brook's
path, just as it had since the last ice age. A stream shall tolerate no
diversion placed by mankind…Oh, it may tease you for a while, but give nature
her reign and puny human tasks shall soon be erased.

 The Spruce Street Bridge…two blocks long…was above the original creek-bed.
The new run began toward the bridge's south end. The waters ripped the
foundation out from under the south terminus in their haste to undo our
travesty. Mercifully, although severely damaged, this bridge would survive to
see another day.

At Cedar Avenue, just below the L&WV Terminal, the brook had been forced to
make a sharp turn out of her original path. The force of waters returning to
nature's
map undercut, and then collapsed, this vital link between South Scranton and
the rest of the city. The ersatz creek bed was simply churned into the
original path of the creek. The DL&W's Elm Street bridge suffered the same
fate…first, her underpinnings were stripped by the water in her new path, and,
when the water rejoined her original way, the fabric of the bridge itself was
twisted into so much steel spaghetti. 

The cranes and steel rigging at the Army Ammunition plant (Hoffman), being
directly in the path of the original stream, were swept away, buffeted into
scrap by the swirling waters. 

Although the waters were much narrower, and a bit slower at this point than
during their assault on Nay Aug, there was soon to be another problem. The
Roaring Brook traveled through the South-side Flats, across the Delaware and
Hudson right-of-way, and through the end of the CNJ yards. At the very edge of
the Jersey's yard, on South Wyoming Avenue, the Brook flowed into the
Lackawanna River.

The Lackawanna herself was wider and slower than her little sister from the
mountains was. The river began around Forest City, Susquehanna County…parallel
to the mighty Penn Division of the Erie. It wound its way downvalley, through
Carbondale, Mayfield (of O&W fame), Jermyn, Archbald, Peckville, Olyphant,
Dickson City, Throop, and Scranton. Below Scranton, she tracked through
Taylor, Moosic, where she met the Springbrook Creek (the Roaring Brook's mate
on the other side of the mountain), Old Forge, Avoca, and Duryea. At Duryea,
she met with the mighty Susquehanna River, at the Lehigh Valley's Coxton
Yards.

A hundred years of coal mining had taken their toll on the old girl…more so
after the turn of the century when the Operators realized the value of the
waste culm. Dozens of washeries had been built to wash the slate and rock out
of the smaller grades of coal that had for fifty years sat out in man-made
mountains, considered worthless by the very men who had paid to dig it out.
When the courts decided that the miners did not have to be paid for any
material reclaimed from this 'waste'; it was quickly found that the smaller
grades of coal made an excellent source of fuel for homes and light industry.

These 'washeries' cleaned out the coal by 'floating' the slate, silt, and coal
dust out above the reclaimable anthracite. The coal was removed and shipped,
but the effluvia were simply washed into the river. Some of the washeries
reduced culm banks miles around at the base, and hundreds of feet high, back
to earth level.

The effect of this was that millions of pounds of waste material choked the
bed of the Lackawanna River. Her depth had been reduced by more than half in
some places, and the further south one went, the shallower the river got.
Since this river was subject to freshet floods in the spring, she was given a
fairly wide berth wherever possible.

In Archbald, where she was not given room to stretch out, she cleaned the O&W
right-of way right down to the river-bed…no mean feat, since the Old Woman had
built herself a six-foot high retaining wall and cribwork to protect herself
from the river!

In Olyphant, the river flooded the O&W and D&H stations, as well as most of
downtown. In Dickson City and Throop, the right of way for both roads was
scoured, all the way to the Marvine Colliery in North Scranton.

Throughout most of the path of the river towards Downtown Scranton, the banks
were closely followed by the railroads. Along this entire stretch, the
trackage was inundated…not destroyed, but damaged badly enough to be partially
unusable.

After the river passed the Central of New Jersey, the O&W, and the D&H
passenger terminals, she skirted the DL&W mid-town yards, and then ran smack
into the CNJ yards.

During many floods before, the Lackawanna would back up into the Roaring
Brook, and Springbrook further downstream whose apparently ample plains would
prevent, or reduce much downstream damage until the excess could enter the
Susquehanna. This time it was to be different. For the first time in the
Valley's populated history, the Roaring Brook was already in flood, and the
Springbrook was cleaning all signs of civilization from her own banksides. The
Erie's Jefferson Division was being stripped of bridges, track, and freight as
fast as the water could carry them away.


The Susquehanna herself was not in flood, but was at bank level and could
simply not absorb any more water. The Lackawanna began to back up into her own
channel…looking for the area where she could shed her excess. She couldn't use
the Springbrook…water twenty feet high was smashing into her from the mouth of
that stream, so she continued to back up….back, back, back until she found the
Flats in South Scranton.

The Lackawanna River began backwashing into the CNJ yards, up into the mouth
of the Roaring Brook, undercutting the entire yard in the process.

An unfortunate trick of physics comes into play now…water, like electricity,
seeks the path of the least resistance. A stream will simply not allow itself
to drain into stagnant or back-flowing currents. (This is why the crest of a
flood rides over the top of a flooding river, within the river channels, even
though the flood may be miles wide. It is also why ocean waves travel over the
top of tranquil waters below).

The Roaring Brook, although much of her fury was spent, simply could not drain
into the Lackawanna River! At the CNJ yards, when the brook's flood crest met
the River current, it just began to back up. This caused a shallow flood over
a wide area to begin. When the brook waters reached the level of the river
water in the CNJ yards, they simply piled up on top of the river water. Since
the waters couldn't drain, they began to build up. They would continue to do
so for many hours, reaching the second floor of homes blocks from the Roaring
Brook. Homes closer to the river, although lower than the area being flooded
by the brook, would not be flooded as deeply!

This simple twist of fate would save the Delaware and Hudson main. The higher
waters of the Roaring Brook were kept away from the right of way by the slower
waters of the Lackawanna River! * See note below

Slow though the river waters were, they were relentless. Muddy, chocolate
brown water cut a wide path of destruction over the entire length of the
valley , swallowing up homes and businesses, and crushing many of the bridges
linking the county's myriad of towns and railroads.

As bad as the damage on the west side was, it paled in comparison to the
savage ferocity of the storm on the east side of the Poconos…


NEXT: The Poconos   and  The Recovery 

©1998 William J. Gallagher. all rights reseved

*[ed. note (If you have seen footage of a levee break, you will notice that
the water rushes through the gap at river level, yet does not immediately
flood the base of the remaining levee. It may sometimes take hours for the two
streams to level out, and the inside stream may actually become higher that
the river for a time, until the turgor pressure is defeated by one stream or
the other.)]


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