HUGHESVILLE - It's still a bad dream for residents such as Peg Hatch of North Fifth Street.
"Where it never came before, a puddle, and you look at it in the street and it's growing and in 10 minutes up to the house," she said, describing the start of flooding one year ago. "Curb to curb and straight up over the lawn."
Hatch isn't reflective of all the damage the water caused, although it's part of the memories. Rather, she can't get over the tremendous outpouring of support from neighbors, friends, family and strangers.
"One woman stopped by and said, 'I can't help you but here's a pizza.'"
"I didn't even know her name," said Hatch who was forced to flee the creek flood and stayed at the Hughesville Volunteer Fire Department.
At the emergency center, she heard someone say, "'Sorry to hear about your house,'" she said.
She had no idea the chimney fell down and into the basement, taking down the air conditioning system and oil tank with it.
Hatch couldn't bear the fumes and lived with neighbors and her daughter Kate's in-laws.
"My family kept warning me, 'Don't walk in the other room, you have no foundation,'" she said.
To Hatch, it was odd to go upstairs to get clothes to live in and have a big hole in the wall in the other room.
On the one-year anniversary of the flood, Hatch said her memories are of the high school students, her grandsons, and their friends cleaning up oil - by the bucketful.
"So many people helped me," Hatch said. "I don't have all of the names."
The Federal Emergency Management Agency also was supportive.
"FEMA was wonderful," she said. "They were a big help, and kept calling to check on me."
It took three weeks before she could return to the house.
The cost of recovery was another issue. The Picture Rocks Lions Club raised money that was donated to Hatch to finish repairs.
"It still seems like a dream," she said. "It doesn't seem possible it happened. I owe so many people my gratitude and can't repay the kindness people showed."
Collapsed basement
Just down the street from Hatch, Jerry and Wendy Daugherty's basement wall collapsed.
They lived there with their then-20-year-old son Kevin.
"I was working at the school," said Wendy Daugherty, a secretary in the high school office. "I was going to stay and help because the school was serving as an evacuation center."
Little did she know the floodwaters flowed down Fifth Street and impacted her house's foundation.
Since that time, she said the house was jacked up and the wall replaced.
Daugherty remembers heading home and seeing the water covering the foundation.
"You couldn't tell it collapsed," she said. Once she opened the cellar door, one step was left dry in the basement. Water had come up that high, she said.
The federal assistance the Daugherty's applied for covered the loss associated with the concrete and electrical panel, sockets and systems.
"They figured out a formula," she said. But the family lost a freezer filled with meat and Daugherty who cans, specializing in spaghetti sauce, had no more jars.
Thinking back, she said: "You wouldn't imagine it. I have lived here since 1984 and never expected to see this much water."
The Daugherty's were out of the house for two days and one night.
'More aware' in borough
Hughesville Mayor Walter Reed said he anticipates receiving $54,000 from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency in disaster recovery funding for the municipality.
Muncy Creek overflowed its banks and crept down Sixth, Fifth and Fourth streets, he said.
Much of the damage to properties has been repaired, but the borough offices kept documents in the basement, he said.
"Had it not been for neighbors helping each other, it could have been worse," he said.
Neighbors with pumps helped each other get water out of the basement and firefighters went door-to-door asking residents to consider evacuating, he said.
A water line beneath the creek shattered and those living in the L.A.M. housing development in Wolf Township were forced to boil their water until the all clear was given days later, Reed said.
"Life hasn't changed all that much," he said.
"Certainly," he said, "we're more aware of the damage the creek can cause because before that flood the measurement of a major flood was in 1972. We also don't keep our papers in the office basement."
