Friday, September 17, saw the arrival of Hurricane Ivan to our part of north central Pennsylvania. Days before this, Ivan had spread havoc throughout the southern portion of the United States. At its peak, Ivan was a borderline Class 5 - Class 4 hurricane. On this Friday it had been downgraded in stature but it still packed a walloping punch. The rains came. The creek banks became over burdened.

We had not seen a flood in our area since 1996. A newspaper clip of that flood is below. But our time had come again. It became apparent Lycoming Creek would overflow its banks soon. We did not know the exact time, but we could use data from stream readings north of Hepburnville to convince us this would occur.

We made a hard decision. We knew if we evacuated and a flood did not occur, many people would find fault with our actions. But everything pointed to a flood. We had to give an early warning to our citizens to evacuate from those areas that are prone to floods. We felt we had to error on the side of safety. At 12:04 am, Saturday, September 18, Lycoming Township Supervisor Robert Wagner, Hepburn Township Supervisor Larry Matty and our Emergency Management Coordinator and Fire Chief Jeffrey Tempesco signed a document declaring a "Disater Emergency" for our townships which officially authorized us to evacuate the flood prone areas.

Unfortunately we were correct in taking the actions we did. Flood levels at the #4 Bridge in Hepburnville traditionally is about 13.5 feet. At 1:15 am the reading was 12.0 feet. This gradually rose. At 3:15 am the reading had reached 13.5 feet. At 3:36 am, Assistanf Fire Chief Bryan Bower reported to Hepburn Command that water was beginning to spill over Metzger Avenue. The resulting flood was inevitabled. Lycoming Creek crested at 16.9 feet later that morning

We have put together a few pictures of the flood as well as our efforts during the incident and the cleanup. Click on the pictures below to view them.