Hurricane Agnes Reveals Man’s Weakness and His Strength
DURING the last two weeks of June one of the most devastating storms in United States’ history swept through the eastern parts of the country. Named “Agnes,” it took over 130 lives and caused almost two billion dollars’ worth of damage.
Right from Agnes’ conception her treachery baffled weather watchers. She began off the lower eastern coast of Mexico. Many tropical disturbances are initiated there yearly during the June-through-November hurricane season. While most disappear, about a half dozen, like Agnes, develop into full hurricanes—whirling, moving masses of warm air that suck water vapor into themselves, and this, in turn, condenses as rain.
Agnes was responsible for seven deaths in Cuba and several in south Florida as tornadoes spawned by her spun into that area. She then slammed into the Florida “panhandle” with eighty-mile-per-hour winds. Once inland, Agnes, as expected, lost much of her strength.
But instead of dissipating over the mainland, Agnes swung eastward through Virginia and Maryland and out to sea, there reviving herself. A strong ridge in the upper air barricaded her seaward path and forced her back inland. The storm now hit eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and western New York. Then she unexpectedly whipped back to take a second punch at Pennsylvania, this time on the state’s western end. Agnes’ unpredictable course finally ended over eastern Canada.
Agnes Reveals Man’s Weakness
The storm’s greatest damage resulted from its torrential rains. It could hardly have come at a worse time. The northeastern United States was already ‘waterlogged,’ with rivers swollen and the ground saturated from two years of the heaviest rain on record. Then came Agnes, a storm, 250 miles wide, packing an amazing amount of moisture. Disaster came particularly to the low areas near rivers in Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia.
The waters of Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River, however, were the most violent, making the hundred-mile stretch between Wilkes-Barre and Harrisburg seem like a war zone. Vast devastations appeared commonplace. Cresting at over forty feet at Wilkes-Barre, the Susquehanna forcibly ejected over 60,000 area residents from their homes. Harrisburg became virtually an island cut off from the rest of the state. Some 15 percent of the city itself was under water. Main streets in smaller cities became rivers. Bridges were twisted off their moorings, while others washed away or sank under tons of accumulated debris. Damage in Pennsylvania, the state hardest hit by Agnes, is estimated by some to tally over one billion dollars!
New York state’s usually placid Chemung River, which flows into the Susquehanna, acted, to quote one reporter, “like an uncaged tiger.” It and other New York streams ruined everything in their broadened paths.
Most graphic are the accounts of those who saw the loss of human life. A woman in Corning, New York, sobbed: “I cried when I saw people sliding under. There were waves of people making for Denmark Hill (a local landmark of high ground). They tried to run for the hill and never made it.”
Almost one hundred thousand persons were stranded homeless in New York state and the economic cost is estimated at one hundred million dollars.
Words, even pictures, can only partially convey what the survivors saw when they went back to their homes. Inches of smelly muck coated everything; worms and mold often accompanied it. Furniture, appliances, carpets, draperies and personal possessions were twisted rags and rubble. Walls and ceilings warped while foundations gave way or weakened. Automobiles lay overturned in driveways, and lawns were pocked with huge holes.
Health hazards threatened—typhoid from sewage seeping into the water supply; rotting garbage attracted rats and flies. The danger of electrocution from downed power lines and fire from ruptured petroleum tanks was very real. And when the sun finally came out and dried the mud-covered roads, the coating turned powdery fine, creating choking clouds of dust.
Human shortsightedness undoubtedly contributed to make Agnes a bigger disaster than she had to be. Numerous people refused to heed advance warnings. Other men later risked their lives to retrieve those who had stubbornly failed to listen.
Selfishly, others slowed evacuation procedures by insisting on taking along needless material items, like color television sets. Sightseers came into or near areas due to be evacuated, congesting roads with their automobiles.
And, like human parasites, looters appeared, many working out of boats, while thieves collected money from flood victims for nonexistent flood relief programs. Lawmen thus had to divert their attention from saving lives to combating such unscrupulous activity.
Workers Show Strength Before Agnes
On the other hand, Agnes brought numerous displays of courage. Policemen and troopers, despite their own personal losses, stayed on the job. Many did much of the initial warning by going from house to house or using loudspeakers to rouse people from sleep. Though working long hours and suffering injury along with exhaustion, some had to be all but ordered home.
Firemen were forced to wade through treacherous currents and risked climbing dilapidated buildings. Members of the military did rescue work or trucked or flew in food, water and medical supplies. Some rescuers were killed trying to save others.
Helicopters whirred into the rescue operations, lifting literally hundreds from watery crises. Twenty-five stranded vacationers were helicopted from two islands in the Susquehanna. At Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, utility lines kept state police from bringing their helicopter near a family stranded in a mobile home. So two officers dropped into a rubber raft and floated downstream to the listing trailer. Then, after the family was in the raft, the hovering helicopter created a wind to drive the bobbing craft to higher ground and safety!
Volunteer ham radio operators often coordinated rescue efforts. They were, on occasion, the only means of emergency communications, relaying calls for supplies and help.
Alongside swollen rivers, volunteers worked hard building dikes. They filled sacks, plastic bags, pillowcases, and anything else that would hold sand to keep back the water. In Wilkes-Barre, though thousands volunteered as dike builders, the surging Susquehanna suddenly destroyed their work, forcing them to flee for their lives.
Youthful strength and expertise played their part. Residents at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, credit Dickinson College students with doing much of the work on the successful dike erected there. Emergency shelters in some areas were largely staffed by those under twenty-five years of age.
Loving Concern Shown for Christian Brothers and Others
Scores of congregations of Jehovah’s witnesses were in the danger zone. The way they faced the problem is enlightening and encouraging.
Prior to the storm’s arrival, those who had oversight of the congregations made sure that all the Witnesses were cared for and heeding warnings. These advance efforts probably contributed to there being no fatalities among the thousands of Witnesses in the entire storm area.
In drenched Wilkes-Barre, for instance, two overseers in one congregation contacted each other as the storm threatened. They divided the number of Witnesses to be contacted between themselves. One recalls what that night meant for him:
“I heard news reports that all persons in Lower Plymouth were to evacuate their homes. Being a resident of Wilkes-Barre (a neighboring town), and not affected by this evacuation, I thought I had better go to Plymouth and help the brothers in the low area to evacuate.
“It was a long process with all the congested traffic and it took four hours for the trip to the other side of the river. At 3:30 a.m. Friday I returned home, only to find that lower Wilkes-Barre had to evacuate also. So for an hour and a half my wife and I were on the telephone trying to reach all the brothers affected to see if they had transportation.”
Then, after working all night, what happened? The Witness continues:
“At 5:30 in the morning the sirens sounded and the speakers were heard saying that now was the time to go. I got my family and we left with what we had on. There was no time to gather personal belongings—some Witnesses were still not contacted so we had to drive to their homes in the heavy traffic. When all the Witnesses were checked on, I took my family to safety.”
With his Christian brothers and family safe, he then volunteered his services to help sandbag the dike. In certain stricken areas men appointed to supervise Bible study groups of ten to twenty other Witnesses watched after those in their care.
What strengthened the Witnesses to carry this load in a loving and organized fashion? One thing that no doubt greatly helped was prayer. Once Agnes had swept through Apalachicola, Florida, the Witnesses there “prayed that Jehovah would protect His people on up the coast as the storm kept up its course and caused more damage than it did here.”
Faced with losing personal property, they found additional strength in knowledge of Bible truth. As one Witness in the storm area recalls:
“We conditioned our minds to the possibility that we might lose everything and we must be glad that we could escape with our lives. This reminded me of Job’s experience and some wise sayings in the Proverbs and the comfort of some Psalms. The hope we have of living under Divine Rulership in a paradise earth all of a sudden seemed much more important to us than all the possessions we had.”
Such strength had to be maintained. As waters receded, most people put cleanup activities foremost in their minds. But Jehovah’s witnesses gave something else good attention. In all the affected areas they gathered together for Bible meetings almost immediately after the storm. The presiding minister at Salamanca, New York, remembers:
“The brothers kept in touch and, while our Thursday night meeting was canceled in compliance with police pleas for residents to stay off the streets, our Sunday Watchtower meeting was held in three locations, due to the fact that it was impossible to get across the river with all bridges being closed. Our attendance was about 100%.”
Over in Elmira, New York, the Bible study with the use of The Watchtower that same day was held by candlelight. And, in spite of personal setbacks from the storm, many Witnesses expressed determination to get to one of the “Divine Rulership” District Assemblies due to meet in various parts of the country.
In the clean-up operations that followed, hundreds of Witnesses from many states traveled into afflicted areas to aid their Christian brothers. Material contributions, including money, often accompanied them.
As these volunteer Witness crews had opportunity they also helped strangers. This help often led to such remarks as, ‘I’ll never again turn Jehovah’s witnesses away from my door.’
What About the Future?
Now, throughout the flooded area, everyone asks one question, How can future disasters such as Agnes brought be prevented?
Dams and other flood-control devices have proved to be only partially successful. Virtually all experts in flood control will agree with the New York Times editorial: “The real need is to break the pattern, to abandon the dangerous flood plains and to resettle people . . . on safer, higher ground.” Harrisburg newspaper columnist Paul Beers supports that view with this observation:
“The [early] pioneers had little scientific knowledge, but they knew the value of high ground beside a river like the Susquehanna. It is interesting to note that many of the fine old homes along Front St., including the site of the old Governor’s Mansion, were high and dry, while farther up and down [everything] was submerged, including the new Governor’s Mansion.”
Most people probably will never “break the pattern” of the past. Too many like their “riverfront views.” Others return to the floodplains after each disaster, saying that to move would be an admission of defeat. Many in lower economic brackets and on fixed incomes have mortgaged homes in the river area and so feel they cannot move.
Persons of strong faith realize that it will require God’s new system to bring genuine security. As one of the survivors of Agnes’ fury said: “We are looking forward to the time after the great storm of Armageddon when the earth can be thoroughly cleaned up. In the meantime, all are certainly very thankful to Jehovah for their life, their health and the privilege of serving him.”
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Mexico
Cuba
Gulf of Mexico
Atlantic Ocean