My name is Marlene, I'm 13 years old and this is my personal experience of the September 2011 Tropical Storm Lee flood. We had five feet in our first floor and we recently moved back into our repaired home in May.
It rained and rained and rained for three months straight. The Loyalsock Creek is across the road from my house and on Sept. 9, 2011, it had enough.
I attended C.E. McCall Middle School for one hour that day. When we got home, my dad, who grew up in that house, saw that the water was rising higher and faster than he's ever seen.
Article Photos
BASSETT
My family of five and our one neighbor who was helping us realized that this was real so we moved everything off the first floor and onto the second.
We each packed an emergency bag for the night. I grabbed my junior high softball uniform because I wasn't sure if I would ever see it again.
We just finished moving everything when the waters started coming in through the side door. My parents thankfully knew not to stay in the house overnight so we waded through our back yard to our rental vacation cabin. We were watching the muddy water enter our home through any possible way it could, and there was no way to stop it.
That was when I broke down crying in my sister's arms saying, "why us, what have we done, I'm only 12, why us!" Then we started moving everything onto the second floor of that cabin while the water started entering through the front door.
We had to exit through the back window. All that we could do from there was watch and absorb all that was happening. We were backed up into the woods of our back yard by the water. When we had enough, we made our way through the woods to the Plunketts Creek Fire hall with our two dogs.
Our fire hall was already in the process of creating a makeshift shelter for the night. Once we had dry clothes on we could just listen to the volunteers' radios sounding calls of people who were trapped that they couldn't reach.
The moms at the fire hall started making a dinner with what we had available. The hot sausages and pancakes were the best thing at the time.
The five of us spent the night in our two cars that we move up the road whenever we see the water getting high. Our neighbors either did the same or spent it inside the fire hall on cots.
That was the worst night of sleep I ever had because you could still hear the rain on the roof of the car, and all you could do was dream of was your house being destroyed by water and who knows what else.
We are very thankful for all of the people who have and still are helping us along our long recovery journey.
A special thanks goes to the Plunketts Creek Volunteer Fire Hall and all that they did for us and our community.
Bassett, a student at C.E. McCall middle School, Montoursville, is the daughter of Diane and Britt Bassett, of Barbours.
