wfn.org | Heavy Winds and Rain Hit Western Maryland's Coal Towns;

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11-September-1996                 
 
 
96353 
     Heavy Winds and Rain Hit Western Maryland's Coal Towns; 
             Residents See Worst Flooding since 1936 
 
                          by Alexa Smith 
 
LONACONING, Md.--Presbyterian Edna Park, 80 years-old, has been throwing 
out just about everything she can lift in her mud-soaked basement -- ruined 
knickknacks that her mother used years ago, drenched papers, old boxes full 
of memories. 
 
     "I had four feet of water in one room and over four feet in another. 
And mud?  There's nothing but mud on the floor. ... Everything's just 
toppled over.  The hot water heater.  A heavy work bench. A kitchen 
cabinet.  My upright freezer's gone," she told the Presbyterian News 
Service.  "I have to get someone in to fix my gas furnace. ... 
 
     "All the years I've lived here, never did the water come like this," 
Park declared.  "I was born in this house  It's the only place I've ever 
lived." 
 
     The house sits along Route 36, just yards from the now-buckled 
railroad tracks that haul tons of coal out of this string of aging mining 
towns that line storm-swollen George's Creek -- Midland, Lonaconing, 
Moscow, Barton and Westernport. But while no one is quite sure yet whether 
this western edge of Alleghany County will qualify for any kind of federal 
or state aid, most agree this is the worst flooding anyone here can 
remember since St. Patrick's Day, 1936. 
 
  
      And those who can remember say this flood is even worse.   
 
     The area sits 300 miles and dozens of mountains from Maryland's shore. 
But that didn't minimize the wallop Tropical Storm Fran packed when she 
crossed over the Appalachians Sept. 6, bringing with her a daylong deluge 
and strong winds. 
 
     "1936 was the only time I remember water coming down through these 
yards ... and it's happened two times this year," said one 60-ish resident, 
watching the waters sweep broken windowpanes, railroad ties, tires -- and 
even pieces of an old bowling alley once run by baseball Hall of Famer 
Lefty Grove -- down the river that was just hours ago Route 36.  The waters 
reached up to his front porch. 
 
     He paused, watching the stalled-out pump hooked up to his rapidly 
filling basement:  "I was seven then." 
 
     Allegany County Emergency Management director Jean Smith said 
preliminary assessments are in now for this inland storm, but that it would 
be at least Monday (Sept. 16) before people would know about eligibility 
for federal aid.  "There's no disaster funding in the state that I'm aware 
of.  
 
     "[And] we have here massive infrastructure damage.  The road shoulders 
are gone.  Bridges are undermined.  Water and sewage lines are washed away. 
 ... It's a mess.  George's Creek put rocks everywhere," said Smith.   The 
county, to date, is estimating that at least 33 homes have been seriously 
damaged or destroyed, she added.  
 
     "We're seeing houses with their back ends over streams," Smith told 
the Presbyterian News Service.  She described railroad tracks so buckled by 
the water's force that they look like a "roller coaster," stranding two 
engines near Midland. 
 
     Lonaconing mayor John Coburn said Sept. 9 that at least 10 residents 
lost everything and that nearby Westernport was reporting even more wrecked 
homes.  He said not all roads were open yet -- that five-foot craters were 
paralyzing some routes -- but water service was finally restored. 
 
     In nearby Barton, the Rev. Vern Gauthier described the basement of 
First Presbyterian Church as totaled, with about five feet of water and mud 
swamping the kitchen and fellowship hall.  "It was sort of a heavy 
atmosphere when we started worship Sunday," he said.  People felt not only 
helpless to stop the rushing water, but to do much cleanup afterward, since 
water service was limited. 
 
     "But life is starting to get back to normal," Gauthier said.  "We got 
water yesterday ... and people are working around the clock to clean up." 
 
     Gauthier also pastors First Presbyterian Church in Lonaconing, which 
sits on a hill along Main Street.  The town had little water damage -- just 
a few broken tree limbs. Baltimore Presbytery executive the Rev. Herb 
Valentine is expected to visit the area Sept. 12. 
 
     For those who have lived in this valley all of their lives, two heavy 
floods in the past ten months are hard to explain. 
 
     Coburn said Maryland's governor waived applications for permits to 
dredge Lonaconing's slate-bottomed creekbeds.  Regular dredging is 
prohibited by the state's wildlife protection laws -- so debris accumulates 
on the bottoms.  When excess water hits, the streams can only widen and 
overflow. "[He said] to get the creekbeds where they should be," said 
Coburn.  "They've taken on more water than they can handle." 
 
     Flooding also occurred last January, when flash flooding caused by 
heavy rain came on top of an early winter thaw.  At that time, some 
residents qualified for federal aid and others took out loans to repair 
damaged property. 
 
     But Presbyterian Woodrow Nightengale -- who is the president of 
Lonaconing's volunteer fire company -- believes the problem is bigger than 
just the creekbeds.  He said there are going to have to be even tighter 
restrictions on western Maryland's strip-mining industries that have 
clear-cut the timber on the hillsides to get at the coal underneath. "There 
has to be more put back than they take out and it has to be put back 
quicker than they've taken it out," Nightengale said, in order for the 
ground to hold water back. 
 
       "I said that in 1961," Nightengale stated. 
 
     "This is going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars," he added. 
He estimates that 98 percent of the residents of George's Creek go without 
expensive flood insurance and over 100 families in Lonaconing alone had 
significant flood damage.  "Our area mainly consists of senior citizens on 
fixed incomes. ... [And for working people] the wages are not high like in 
metropolitan areas. 
 
     "There has to be some assistance for these people who've lost 
everything they ever worked for," Nightengale said. 
 
     Gauthier said he's not yet visited all the members of the Presbyterian 
churches in Barton and Lonaconing.  "But we'll probably have our share of 
damage. ...      "Anybody who lived in a low-lying area got water." 
 
     Smith -- who is running her second emergency operation for the county 
out of Cumberland, Md., since January -- would agree.  "When water gets 
into these hills ... it just funnels down.  And if you live along George's 
Creek, look out," she said.   There is still damage to be repaired from 
January and already repaired damage that needs to be redone now, she noted. 
"But the community pulls together ...  helping everybody else clean up. 
 
     "It's a joint effort between the county, the town, the people," she 
said.  "It's disheartening.  But we also know we can do it." 
 
     At press time, Maryland's governor, Parris Glendening, was visiting 
George's Creek. 

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