F4—Lanc«i
Saturday, August 18,1984
I pip 1
High water marks painted on the farm store pay silent
testimony to the Susquehanna River's continuing inundation
of Youngway's rick bottom ground, barns and farm homes.
homes
(Continued from Page F 2)
Under torrests of rain pouring
from leaden skies, the Youngs
moved the milking animals to the
second floor of a bam next to Ned
and Molly’s house, the same place
that had offered refuge to the
family so many times before.
“We never had water in that
second floor of the bam up there,”
Young relates. There, we were
sure they’d be safe.”
That was Wednesday. Waters
continued to rise, rapidly filling the
barns, the dairy store, the first
floor of the house. Youngs watched
from their refuge on the home’s
second floor.
Still it continued, the nver rising
by feet as the rain fell by inches.
Escape by boat
Through the dangerous rushing
waters on Thursday came local
fireman, who loaded the family
into boats and took them to safety
with Ned’s brother’s family.
When the river finally crested
late that week, it had hit the 36-feet
level.
By early Saturday, the waters
had dropped enough to allow the
men some measure of safety in
returning to the battered farm
stead, a scene of almost un
believable destruction and chaos.
Immediate attention went to the
milking herd, which had stood in
up to 34 inches of water during
those long, terrifying days and
nights.
Working their way through the
shambles, the Youngs found some
cows struggling in hay holes,
where pressure of the rising
waters had pushed up safety doors.
With sheer force of back labor and
Farming with river at door
~' s- *’ v
'% f
adrenalin, they hauled the disabled
animals back up out of the square
traps. Some were saved. For
others, it was too late. Several had
to be destroyed because of ex
tensive injuries, and about a dozen
total fell victims to the flood’s fury.
Hand milking
Although many cows had
already naturally begun drying up
production after three days of no
feed and no milkouts, hand milking
took hours. Miraculously, the
electricity was operational; and
later that same day a portable
milker was located, easing the
tedius job of working in the muddy,
sloppy, crowded conditions at least
a bit.
Every tractor in spite of having
been moved to higher ground, had
been under water. Every motor at
the bam, feed room, processing
plant was soaked and coated with
slimy ooze. The shop tools, moved
to supposed-safety on the barn’s
upper floor, lay wet, mud covered
and inoperable.
“Everything was just soaked,
ruined. The store looked like it had
been bulldozed,” Young continues.
First major cleanup focus was in
the milking parlor, where vacuum
pumps and compressors required
tearing down, dryout and some
replacement of parts. It was a full
week after the cattle had been
evacuated before milking resumed
with anything that even faintly
resembled “normal” working
conditions.
Com silos were empty, and
although the Harvestores had only
small amounts of first-cutting in
them, the water did not destroy
that feed. However, the feed room,
Hay floats away
with its motors and button
operating panels had taken many
feet of water, and took days before
it could be dried out, repaired and
put back into usuable shape.
Second cutting of hay, laying in
windrows, had simply floated
away downstream.
July 4 came and went before the
fields became dry enough to
venture on with the lightest
equipment. Then, before a tractor
could make a single pass through a
field, every foot had to be policed
for litter.
Bottles, cans, tires, garbage
debris of every kind imaginable,
even a tanker truck from a parking,
lot upstream, remained in the
muddied, sticky, smelly m
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A full three-weeks-worth of work
was necessary to clean up, dry out,
replace parts and disinfect the
store before the doors could be
reopened to loyal, local customers.
Although the physical
devastation could be repaired over
the ensuing weeks, the cash-flow
nightmare was just beginning.
There simply were no feed
supplies. Com, replanted, never
matured. Hay, both for dry feed
and for reconstituting into
haylage, was hauled in by the
trailer loads.
“And this was before anyone had
ever heard much about flood in
surance,” adds Young.
Herd average drops
Herd average dropped about
four thousand pounds, from 15,000
to about 11,000. Many additional
>■<! fro'- the herd had to be
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disposed of later, as they
developed serious udder or other
physical problems.
While government disaster low
interest loans did eventually
become available, the financial
tangle was still not totally
unraveled when the heavens
opened again.
“That was September of 1975,
and we still hadn’t recovered from
the Agnes flood. But - this time we
weren’t getting caught again,”
vehemently relates Young. “Those
memories were just still too vivid.
We moved everything - including
ourselves.”
Cattle all went to empty bams,
the milkers several miles away.
When the river crested at 29 feet, it
left the standing com crop leaning
downstream, but relatively un
(Turn to Page F 5)
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