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REGION DRENCHED

MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette A home seems stranded as water flows from the mountain over Lower Bodines Road and into a field in Bodines Friday morning. The object on the far right is a hot tub.

More than 100 residents were forced to flee their homes overnight Thursday as flash floods caused both Lycoming and Loyalsock creeks as well as a number of tributaries to overflow their banks.

“We’re talking anywhere between 100 and 150 people just in Lewis and McIntyre townships alone,” Trout Run Robert Whitford said.

Among those forced to evacuate were Thomas and Vickie Murray, who tried to use a sump pump to deal with the water that was filling their garage at 83 Slacks Run Road in Lewis Township, but the pump just could not keep up.

Murray, carrying the couple’s 8-year-old Boston Terrier, Peanut, and his wife, holding onto a bag of medications and some cellphones, made their way to their car in the garage.

“We got into the car, which was full of water. Tom got it started and gunned it,” getting the vehicle through the flooded driverway and onto the road, which was not yet flood.

The Murrays were able to sit in the vehicle for a while, but then fled because “water was coming in behind us. It was really coming in all directions,” Vickie Murray said during a brief interview at the Trout Run firehouse on Route 14.

About four dozen people temporarily were evacuated to the the fire station until they could be reunited with family members or friends who were taking them in if they could not return to their homes, Whitford said.

An apparent “logjam” in Slacks Run compounded the flooding in the region, Whitford said.

“There was just a tremendous amount of water coming from the run. We’ve never had that before,” he said.

“We had people trapped at the Cascade picnic grounds. It took forever to get in there, but it we finally got them out,” Whitford said.

A bridge on Upper Bodines Road between Slacks Run and Pleasant Stream roads was wiped out, he said.

Every available fire boat in the county was used to help rescue residents, who suddenly found their homes surrounded by water.

Flood waters from Lycoming Creek swept over McIntyre Way, near Powys Curve, leaving 15 to 18 residents stranded in a small area, surrounded by 3 feet of water.

Firefighters using an inflatable boat were on their way to rescue them when the watercraft snagged on a sharp object, disabling the boat.

Another team of firefighters arrived with a second boat to help rescue the rescuers as well as those stranded. However, by late Friday morning, the water was rapidly receding, allowing the residents to get to the main road on their own, Whitford said.

During the early-morning hours “firefighters also responded to a structural collapse at a home in the 4300 block of Rose Valley Road in Gamble  Township. Ground water off the mountains caused a 25-foot section of a back wall to collapse,” he said. No one was injured, he added.

A man was taken to the Williamsport Regional Medical Center shortly after he was pulled to safety from his car in the 1500 block of  Slacks Run Road, Whitford said.

“Water came up around the vehicle and he was trapped. He suffered some hypothermia issues,” the fire chief said.

Passersby rescued him and then paramedics got him to the hospital, Whitford said.

Also temporarily displaced were 47-year-old Sheb Brown and his girlfriend, Roxann Shuman.

Flood waters surrounded their home at 183 McIntyre Way as it stood on 12-foot-high cinder blocks. While the house was safe, the couple lost their water service. They also had no heat since they had no electrical service, Brown said.

Everything in an open storage area under the house was swept away in the current, including a riding mower, three chainsaws and other tools, said Brown, a logger for 27 years.

“I was outside on the deck and watched everything just go. There was nothing you could do about it. I certainly wasn’t going to to risk my life and go after it,” Brown said.

During the night, he moved the couple’s 2001 Volkswagen out of the storage area to higher ground, and he was very glad he did.

“There was only a foot of water around the house when I moved the car about 4 a.m. However, by 7 a.m., it was coming up very quickly. I certainly didn’t expect it to be this bad. It came right over the bank and right down McIntyre Way,” Brown said as he stood on a back about 30 yards from the home.

Several miles up north in Marsh Hill, the flood left “quite a bit” of damage in its wake, said Ralston Fire Chief John Orr.

“A number of cabins were completely obliterated, some homes were knocked off their foundations and bridges were torn out,” he said.

Like Whiteford and many other area volunteer chiefs, Orr spent most of the morning leading rescue operations. In his case,  he directed teams of firefighters rescue nearly two dozen residents stranded in their homes along Marsh Hill Road and Pleasant Stream roads in McIntyre Township.

A fire boat from Jersey Shore assisted.

A bridge along Upper Bodines Road was destroyed as was one on Pleasant Stream Road. Two other bridges on Pleasant Stream Road were still standing, but sections of road to that bridge were wiped out, Orr said.

Four displaced residents stayed Friday at the Ralston firehouse on Route 14. The local chapter of the American Red Cross was assisting in putting them up at local motels.

In Loyalsock Township, nearly a dozen residents were rescued by firefighters, according to Assistant Fire Chief Richard Caschera.

Residents from the 1900 block of Walters Road, the 1500 block of Northway Road, the 1800 and 1900 blocks of Warrensville Road as well as those living in the Mill Creek Development off of Warrensville Road were told to evacuate. Boats from the city, Muncy Area and Clinton Township assisted.

“In some areas, there wasn’t enough water for us to use our boats,” so the firefighters reached some of the stranded with a brush truck, Clinton Township Fire Chief Todd Winder said.

Even when firefighters encouraged residents to evacuate, many decided to stay in their homes.

“Some wanted to wait it out and shelter-in-place. We tried to tell them ‘If you wait, we may not be able to get back to you,'”  Winder said. Still, they chose to remain.

“We got a family of five out of their home on Warrensville Road,” Winder said.

At another house, “one woman came out with three cats and three small dogs,” he added.

One of those to evacuate on Northway Road was John Wardlow, one of eight to be temporarily forced from an apartment complex.

“When I woke up, I could hear water rushing. When I turned on a light and looked out, I could see it,” said Wardlow, an employee at Valley View Nursing Center whose apartment faces Miller Run.

One of Wardlow’s neighbors, a woman who declined to give her name, said a firefighter came to her front door and told her, “We got to go, lady.”

“I grabbed what stuff I could and left,” she said.

The water level of Lycoming Creek read at 17.05 on a gauge at Camp Susque, north of Trout Run, at 7 a.m.

When Tropical Storm Ivan swept through the region in 2004, the creek crested there at 15.64, Frank Pile, the emergency management agency coordinator for Loyalsock Township, said.

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