Fighting the River–Saving the Middle School

Well, I spent most of the morning this morning fighting the Susquehanna River—actually fighting a creek that feeds the river, the creek was rising quickly and threatened to flood the local middle school.

It had rained for four straight days here in Danville so a flood was inevitable.

The green area indicates rain. After 4 days of solid green, its bound to flood.

Got a call from the local school superintendent(actually a robo call using the same system as they do for snow days) that the town needed some people to bag sand and help protect the middle school from flooding.

So I put on my boots and rain jacket and headed down to do what I could. There were already about 50 plus people there so I started tying bags and then started carrying bags and then we formed a line and started lining the bridge with sand bags.

One side had a flood control gate but the middle school side did not so we were frantically placing sandbags on that side. Meanwhile, the water was rising in the creek but also it was backing up through the storm drains and was flooding our section of the road as well.

Lining up to move sand bags from the sand pile to the bridge.

We formed a massively long line and moved sand bags hand over hand from the sand pile to the bridge. Everyone pitched in and in 3 hours. The bridge was secure. It was a busy morning.

First they put down a tarp and then cover it with sand, then cover the sand and then cover the sand with sand bags.

It was great to see everyone come out and work together to help the town and the school. A tiring but rewarding morning and a great show of commuity spirit.

Too much water is not a good thing.

As the water started to come into our side of the bridge through drainage pipes (draining the wrong way because of water pressure). We found ourselves getting increasingly wet, my boots were dry most of the time until the water got about knee high.

Everyone from the National Guard to local prisoners where there to help out.

We made it and as you can see from the picture below, the water was starting to go over the bridge as we completed the sand bagging, shortly after this picture was taken, the bridge was covered by a thin layer of water and was still rising when I left.

Water almost up to the bridge. You can see the flood gate on the other side of the bridge