Flint Adventures: Hershey Under Water

What a crazy last month. First we feel the earthquake that was centered in Virginia, then we got the winds and rain from Hurricane Irene, and now Tropical Storm Lee comes in and pounds Hershey. You would think of the three, a tropical storm would be the least disruptive. But no, Hershey got the bulls eye of the storm coming through Pennsylvania. And we were all worried about the amount of rain this storm would leave on Rad and Laura living in Biloxi. Never thought we would be hit with it like we were. We were very lucky that our place did not get any flooding in the basement. We only got a little in the garage. I went out Tuesday morning going to Reese's doctor's appointment. There was some flooding on the roads by our house, but I didn't really think too much of it. Coming back from her appointment, they were starting to block off the clover leaf intersection in Hershey, but the roads that were flooded that morning no longer had water on them. My friend Wendy and her daughter Natalie were coming over for lunch, so I called and said don't worry about coming if the roads around her place were bad, but she was able to make it to my house without much incident. It continued to pour rain, and two hours later when she left my house, there was no possible way for her to get home. So they came back for a while until water receded and she went a really long roundabout way home. The schools were let out two hours early, but the buses taking the elementary kids were not able to get around town, so the elementary kids were stuck at the school until later that evening. The roads were so bad, that the parents were not even able to take them from the school until some of the waters had receded. The clover leaf area flooded so badly that the Pizza Hut and Wendy's were under water, and it was reported that the Pizza Hut collapsed under the rush of the water. Of course the roads by the Swatara River were flooded, as would be expected, but the flash floods that hit everywhere else left a lot of destruction. Roads buckled and were totally impassible. These are roads I drive every day. Wes was stuck at the hospital working, but all roads leading home were flooded anyway. Luckily he was able to make it home that night. And it just kept raining. HersheyPark was under water. ZooAmerica had to euthanize two bison because they couldn't get them out in time with the flash floods and they didn't want the to suffer drowning. Lots of people have flooded basements, and homes along the rivers are completely flooded. The destruction is just amazing. Our sewer plant is under water, so we're under a mandatory conserve water advisory. We've even heard that they may take our water off line, so I've got every pitcher filled with water, one bathtub filled with water, and the drains in the basement are plugged up. But today is looking much better. I even saw the sun, and we were able to go out to get Charlie's hair cut and to get some groceries. I think we've seen the worst of this. Now time to clean up Hershey.

Here are a bunch of pictures that I took off of facebook. I was lucky to not have to go out during the worst of it.