© if = 0 © me a ANS PACA . the oF . Staff Photos board. receding waters. At 3:30 a.m., June 23, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Patton and their family of fgven children were asleep in their home at 451 N. Gates Ave., Kingston. They were awakened by the ringing of the telephone when a relative ~ called to warn them that the Susquehanna River was probably going to overflow the dikes, and that they should pre- pare to leave the area. Mr. Patton and his sons, - Pat 13, started moving some i furniture to the second floor of ~ their home and then went next ~ door to help a neighbor, Robert - Tambur. At 6:30 a.m., the Patton family left their home, con- closed. They reached their des- tination, the high section of East End in Wilkes-Barre, and the home of Mrs. Patton’s parents, where they remained until July 15, when a friend offered them the use of his home at Pocono Farms, Mt. Pocono. In addition to the four older boys the Pattons have a son, Joseph 1, and two daughters; Carol 11 and Mary Ellen 10, and presently living with them is Mr. Patton's father, Irvin Patton. The first floor of his Wilkes-Barre home was flooded and he is still with- out the use of utilities. The Monday morning follow- ing the flood, Bob Patton walked over the bridge and down the railroad six or seven miles until he reached the rear of his home. There was still about four feet of water surrounding his house and mud clung to the sides as far up as the edge of the roof over the eaves. The water had reached a depth of 27 feet. One side of the eight-room home had collapsed. It seemed as if the building had split in the middle, the stairway exposed where the building lay open; the floor overhead collapsed, spilling its contents into the liv- ing room and kitchen below. His neighbor’s asphalt drive- way had been lifted from his yard and was spread out like a carpet in front of the broken section of Mr. Patton’s home. It was impossible to salvage anything except some clothing which was thrown from second floor windows, most of which was fit to wear only after repeated washings. Mrs. Patton, the former Patrice Dougherty of East End, applied immediately to various agencies for food and clothing. She also applied June 26 for a mobile home and seven weeks later, August 11, Mr. Patton re- ceived a call from HUD. A representative would be around to inspect the site. When asked if he would re- build in the same location, Mr. Patton said he was undecided. He likes that neighborhood, originally choosing it over many others he had considered. A lot depends on whether his neighbors return. But, “as I see it,” he said, “there are two alternatives. You can hope you are in some sort of redevelopment area where a redevelopment authority will come in and offer you pre-flood value for your home and then redevelop for either commercial or resi- dential use. If you had equity, you can put that down on another home and lose the cost of your furnishings. “Or you can go to SBA and borrow from them under the new bill, now one percent for 30 years with a $5,000 forgiveness, enough money to pay off your present mortgage, rebuild your house, and replace your furn- ishings. When you are fortunate to get a contractor to rebuild your home, you then have a mortgage about twice the size or better than you had initially. “If you have a $45,000 house, you pay off the first $25,000 which was a mortgage, borrow another $40,000 to rebuild your house, plus furnishings, so you could very well end up with a $70,000 mortgage on a house that you paid $45,000 for ori- ginally. : “Then, Mr. Patton continued, “you’re locked in to it. Nobody will buy from you, you can’t afford to pay them off. There is no restoration of any equity at all. If you rebuild it, you have to live in it for the rest of your life.” Mr. Patton added that if you can find other suitable housing, such as rental, you will then have to pay off the mortgage along with the rent, and “walk away from the shattered house, ference last Wednesday. to rubble as if hit by a bomb. make you tear it down. The latter’’, he said, ‘‘is impracti- cal. ‘You lose no matter how you substantial loss.” ‘My main objective,” Mr. Patton stated emphatically, “is to get the family back in a home where you can raise them properly.” , His plans for the immediate future are to have two mobile homes hooked up at the rear of his property, so that they can move back ‘‘home’’. The younger Pattons, with the ex- ception of the baby Joseph, and Robert, who will enter Univer- sity of Delaware as a freshman this fall, want to return to the school they have been attend- ing, West Side Central Catholic in Kingston, when it opens Sept. J. \ When asked how he felt about the government agencies and whether he found them co- operative, he replied, ‘‘Some- times you feel angry, some- times compassionate.”” Above all, he has an understanding of the problems everyone is facing, and says ‘‘we have to face it.” It’s not going to be easy for our generation at re- tirement. We have not had it easy, having been born during a depression, having fought in World War II and Korea, and now this.” But Mr. Patton’s attitude seems to be one of mov- ing forward to the next step available to him and making the most of it.
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