Posted on 08/31/2023 8:01:40 AM PDT by DallasBiff
(WHTM) — It was the most costly natural disaster in American history, and it hit Pennsylvania the hardest. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Hurricane Agnes.
The story of Agnes begins on June 11, 1972, when ripples in the atmosphere appear in the western Caribbean sea. It ends on July 6, when the last vestiges of the storm are absorbed by another weather system out in the Atlantic, south of Iceland.
When Agnes eventually sputtered out, it left behind an estimated death toll of 128, of whom 50 were from Pennsylvania. The storm also caused around 3.1 billion dollars in property damage. (In 2022 dollars that translates to about 21.44 billion dollars.) Of that, about 2.1 billion, or 14.52 billion in 2022 dollars, happened in the Keystone State.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc27.com ...
I will never forget that storm, it rained for days.
At least back then you had authorities who knew who had perished and accounted for the missing, unlike in Maui, where after 3 weeks later there are still hundreds missing.
Global Warming is over and Hurricanes are back ?
My folks were living in Chester County 35 miles west of Philly. I was home from college for the summer. It was an incredible storm that lasted for days. I never knew that two-thirds of the damage was in PA and was the highest of all the states.
I recall Wilkes-Barre, PA, was especially hard hit by the flooding. Other cities and towns on the Susquehanna River were hit by flooding as well. I had extended family in Wilkes-Barre at that time, and heard firsthand about it.
1) Global Warming is a huge problem.
2) Global Warming is increasing.
3) Hurricanes are going to become monsters and destroy everything.
4) Here, let’s go back 50 years to find a hurricane worth talking about so that you understand what I mean ...
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
You misunderstood me, hurricanes have been a fact of life since the beginning of time, and that is what I am stating.
Screwed up my graduation at Penn State as the campus became an island, no one could get there if they hadn’t arrived before the roads closed.
Still had ceremony, just no family there :-(
The Brandywine Creek runs through the heart of Downingtown. It greatly overflowed its banks and flooded Kerr Park in Downingtown. I don’t remember any great local damage, though.
It was amazing being that far inland and getting the brunt of the storm.
We actually got a tiny bit of rain here in North Idaho from Hurricane Hilary that hit Baja California and worked its way up the west coast. It dumped a normal year’s worth of rain in a couple of days in Southern California areas.
my neighbor in baltimore would always say go to war miss agnes...
i think she was referring to the hurricane, but i do not know... do remember dancing in the eye of a hurricane... not sure if it were agnes...
The dike in Williamsport held by a couple of feet I think.
Here's a great home movie/video from Williamsport: link here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Thompson
“Go to war, Miss Agnes!” was picked up from a golfing friend who never swore and whose putting failed to improve even after reading a book about it. Thompson explained the details in Curt Smith’s Voices of the Game:
He was a great guy, very proper, and like any golfer, he had some real frustrations. But instead of cussing, he’d come up with the phrase, ‘Go to war, Miss Agnes!’ I didn’t know what it meant, but don’t feel bad – he may not have known. What I did know was that it sounded so funny. I picked it up and used it to emphasize something big and exciting on the ball field, and it just caught on – with listeners, it snowballed.
I live in York, PA, and I have vivid memories of Agnes. A friend of mine was drinking beer at Mr. Bills, a local bar. When it closed, the customers discovered that a nearby creek flooded, and their cars were under water, except for my friend’s VW, which was floating.
Next day, we got hold of a sump pump, and everyone in our neighborhood had two to three feet of water in our basements. Some got shocked when they were wading in their flooded basements and got too close to an electrical outlet.
A friend’s family had an office equipment business near the inky stinky Codorus Creek, which was starting to flood. They managed to get their most expensive equipment out of the store. The creek flooded up to the second floors, and the streets that were flooded were the red light district. the friend was in a rowboat pulling hookers from second story windows.
Then, the Susquehanna flooded. My brother and a friend had a motorboat docked in the River at Long Level. After the water receeded, they found the boat on a hill across the road from the river.
The worst flooding was upstream in Harrisburg, and north of there on the river. I remember hearing that people were living in tents as winter was approaching.
she must have been a big O’s fan.
tthanks
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