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From: Todd Hollritt thollritt AT yahoo DOT com
Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2006 06:00:58 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Water Gap is water logged
"Water_Gap.jpg" - image/pjpeg, 89280 bytes, 619x552 (24bit)

From the Pocono Record, looks like the Water Gap is a disater area...

I attached a sad photo of the DL&W station under water... again :(

"The historic Delaware Water Gap train station, festooned for the town's Founder's Day festivities planned for this weekend, is surrounded by the raging waters of the Delaware River. Founder's Day has been rescheduled for July 8."
Water Gap is water-logged — again By Michael Sadowski
Pocono Record Writer
June 30, 2006

Enough, apparently, is enough.

"That's it for us," said Lori Ike, 32, while eating a makeshift breakfast along the ready-to-crest Delaware River on Thursday morning. "I swear I won't go through this again. Higher ground starting today."

This is the third flood for Delaware Water Gap in 21 months, the third time dozens of people have used motorboats instead of cars to navigate Broad Street. This one, borough residents say, could be the worst.
It's definitely up higher than the last two times," said Howard Ike. "The first time September 2004, it just barely got to our basement. The next time last April it got to our first floor. Now it's up even higher."
Delaware Water Gap is officially closed. The flooding from the Delaware River, which crested at 30.73 feet Thursday morning, began overnight and now starts at River Road, running directly down Broad Street and engulfing everything from the new Welcome Center opened only one month ago to Doughboy's Pizza.

The Phantom Fireworks store is underwater, and only the roof of the Pocono Inn the former Ramada is visible from the road. The water has risen to about two feet from the second floor of rooms in the back.

About a dozen cars left overnight in the commuter parking lot on Broad Street are submerged, and the murky, brown waters carry ugly remnants of upstream litter.

Power and gas were cut around 4 p.m. Wednesday to 24 homes and six businesses, according to borough Superintendent Bob Gallagher.

The river is expected to return below flood levels by Saturday, when he hopes power can be turned back on and the town can start pumping the standing water into Cherry Creek on the west end of town.

He said the town has the routine down — pump remaining water for a day, then pump the basements of residents and businesses, then bring in the Dumpsters and start the real cleaning.

"We've done this before," Gallagher said.

The latest flood is bound to affect tourism, the mainstay of the Gap economy. The borough's traditional Founder's Day activities scheduled for this Fourth of July weekend have been postponed until next weekend.

The Ikes held out in their house at 123 Broad St. as long as they could, waiting until 1:30 a.m. Thursday.

"We were the last to leave in town," Lori Ike said. "Then we heard the water start coming in and we knew we couldn't wait any longer."

Walt Bishop, 43, knows all about heading to higher ground. He used to live on Broad Street across from the Water Gap Diner. After the first two floods — 8 feet of water in his house in 2004, 11 feet in 2005 — he packed up for higher ground, and now lives on Route 611 in the Gap.

He took time Thursday morning to watch the flood waters safely from the Broad Street overpass, the eastbound ramp leading to Interstate 80. He cast a fishing line into the flood street.

"I don't miss it, that's for sure," Bishop said. "The last two times, it took me a week to pump out my basement. Now, at least I can almost enjoy myself."

There was some good news. The $1 million levee that Laird Technologies built to protect its plant from the flooding river held its ground, keeping the twice-flooded factory dry.

Just north on River Road, Dale Gruber was keeping watch over his mobile home, which also flooded for the third time in the four times he's lived there near the Minisink Hotel which also flooded again.

This time, however, he took the news a little easier than before.

"You watch it flood, then you say, 'OK, time to go get a coffee,'" he said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Delaware River at Tocks Island crested at 30.73 feet at 9:15 a.m.

• Officially, that crest is the third-highest in recorded history, even though many locals unofficially observed higher waters than the No. 2 all-time crest 33.24 feet on April 3, 2005.

• By 4 p.m., the river had fallen to 26.44 feet.

Todd ~



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