Mother Nature Strikes Again

For those of you who follow my blog, but don't know quite where I live -  I live in Northeast Pennsylvania where we recently have had a lot of mother nature's events.

Last weekend, we suffered some severe weather from Tropical Storm Irene. We were pummeled with storms, high winds and rains. This raised our water levels pretty substantially, but we didn't quite understand how this would effect us later that week. Throughout the week, we again had a tremendous amount of rain. In most cities, they received 3 months of rain within a 24 hour period. Here in Mountain Top, we got 8 inches of rain in one day.

Where we live, we have many lakes, rivers, streams, creeks, tributaries that run all over the Northeast portion of PA into New York, New Jersey, etc. With all of the rain we received, there was no where for the water to go, except up and out; causing our surrounding area to become saturated and now: FLOODED. I fortunately live high on a mountain and out of harms way, but many colleagues and friends have been afflicted by the flooding of their homes and businesses.

http://m.citizensvoice.com/levee-system-holding-but-incredibly-stressed-1.1200614

We have a levee system that is made to hold up to rising waters to 41'. Unfortunately, the water finally crested at 42.66' and other areas that weren't protected by the levee system were undoubtedly hit and are now in a state of emergency. Evacuations began Wednesday night and are still being carried out through today as the water levels are finally slowing falling. Joe and I both are fortunate that our work locations were not affected. Kraft allowed all employees to work from home if eligible and Erin's daycare shut down on Friday.

It will be a slow recovery for our area and my thoughts go out to those who have lost their homes and businesses in this devastating flood.