RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,338
('here comes de flood!')
The cool thing about Elmira was,
with its positioning at the base of
the Chemung River, before joining
the Susquehanna, by Waverly, that
in 1972, as Hurricane Agnes was
ripping through the countryside
upstate, everyone KNEW what was
coming. It took a few days, yes,
but the handwriting was on the
wall. Sandbags, and none of that
'save the levee' stuff worked. All
along each upstate waterways, as
the endless rain fell, swelling
streams, rivulets, and rivers too,
it all piled into one huge surge
which began making its way
downstate. All the weatherman
and newspeople kept a weird
vigil, clock-watching the river
and stream crests. It was quite
predictable when ALL that water
would make its way to Elmira, at
its bottom, to join the Susquehanna,
as I've mentioned. Inevitable
'doomination', I called it. When
it finally did hit, pretty much on
schedule and as forecast, all that
muddy, swirling water was vicious,
vile, and quite vibrant. It tore most
anything in its way from moorings
and foundations. Doors and windows,
and sandbags or silly barricades,
meant nothing to it - as it picked
up cars, porches, houses, and
whatever else it could along the
way. It took maybe 6 hours to
engulf and wipe out the entire
center district of the riverside
town, and any and all lowlands
which let the drainage enter. It
was brutal. Probably 9-16 feet of
flood-stage water marks, everywhere,
and anything underfoot was a sodden,
mud-infested, thick and foul-smelling
leftover remnant of 'something' that
once had been. Even memories died,
instantly.
-
I don't know how kids and children
survived it, or what memories of it
all they registered, but there were
bicycles, roller skates, playhouses,
Big Wheels, swing sets and more,
everywhere a'kimbo. Hanging from
ledges and dangling from trees.
Plus the coffins and cadavers already
mentioned as so many old graves
got ripped open. Houses and barns
were down. Prized possessions and
clothing, everywhere askew. Fires
and gas-pilots, little licks of flame
that really could go nowhere, tingled
the air - no explosions, but lots of
weird stuff. Bad water, everywhere,
for two months. A real disaster.
-
Since that time I've seen a few other,
and probably fiercer, hurricanes - mostly
along the Jersey Shore and such, but in
1972 this one took the cake. Took the
prize. A real humdinger if you lived
low.
-
A lot of Elmira was NOT low - people
lived higher up, in the Heights or along
the ridges and elevated hillsides, etc. It
seemed always alone that it was the
poor and the struggling that lived in
the lowlands and riversides. Dangerously
close to danger. They got hit the worst.
-
It was weird to be just sitting around
watching the clock, to envision the
water passing Syracuse, making a
bend at, say, Cortland, rounding to
Corning, and throttling the Chemung
Valley and Elmira. A real geography
lesson, with painful raps on the shins
too for wrong answers.
-
It took two or three days, as well,
for all that water to recede. It kept
flowing, at its own rate, even as the
height and water level, ever so slowly,
lessened. As it did so, it made visible
the absolute wreckage it was leaving
behind. Mud and slime, Plaster walls
and smashed windows and frames.
Broken boards and supports, with
houses leaning or collapsed, right
off their foundations - some even
a block or so from their original
location, and all bungled up with
cars, trucks, and anything else that
the wild flow had picked up and
dropped. The river looked like a
bay. Entire store inventories were
floating around, or had sunk.
-
Late June 1972 was unforgettable.
I forget the death toll, but there was
some - dead bodies and hospital
casualties. It was a sight for sore
eyes, and every eye was sore.
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