Agnes at 50: the storm by which all storms are measured

Jun. 19—Mention Hurricane Agnes, and Frank Zangari thinks of coal.

Oh, there was water too, water everywhere in Girardville, where the then-17-year-old junior at North Schuylkill High School lived in June 1972.

When Mahanoy Creek overflowed after Agnes dumped 10 inches of rain in several days, Girardville residents had to be evacuated to Rangers Hose Company and, when the firehouse was inundated, they had to be moved to higher ground at St. Joseph's Catholic Church.

But Zangari's most vivid memories are of his father, Frank Sr., knee deep in water, struggling to save the furnace in the basement of the family's home on B Street.

"When the 4 feet of water in the basement subsided, we carried coal from the basement in buckets to our backyard so it could dry off," recalls Zangari, 67, Girardville's fire chief.

Zangari's memories are typical of thousands of Schuylkill County residents caught in the maelstrom that turned downtowns into lakes and rivers into seas across northeast Pennsylvania 50 years ago this week.

Agnes — the word is synonymous with disaster to anyone who lived through it — wrought havoc in the first days of summer, June 20-24, as it swept across the region.

Mike Glore, a Pottsville researcher who presented "Agnes + 50" recently at the Majestic Theater, said June had been a wet month and the ground and streams were already saturated when the storm dumped "an astronomical amount of rainfall" on the region.

The National Weather Service reported that isolated areas experienced 18 inches of rain. Glore says the "bull's eye" of the storm was western Schuylkill County, which reported 15 to 19 inches of rain.

"Agnes," he said, "is the storm against which all other storms are measured, locally and regionally." Pull quote if we don't use it in the headline.

PA bore the brunt

Pennsylvania was hardest hit by Agnes, the state's wettest and deadliest tropical cyclone, according to the National Weather Service.

Of the 128 lives claimed by the storm from Cuba to Canada, 50 were in Pennsylvania, by far the most of any state or country.

Damage from the storm reached more than $3 billion, or about $20 billion in 2022 dollars.

After coming ashore in the Florida panhandle on June 19, Agnes weakened to tropical storm status as it moved up the coast. On June 22, rejuvenated to just under hurricane status by winds of 70 m.p.h., the storm dumped torrential rain on Pennsylvania.

"Friday, June 23, 1972, is often remembered as the most infamous day of the Agnes disaster, especially in the Susquehanna River basin, where the rivers rose at a rate never before experienced in response to more than a foot of rainfall during the previous 36 hours," the National Weather Service reported. "The basin's population was realizing that the records of the Great Flood of 1936 would be threatened, and the day was spent in frantic preparation to flee the surging water."

By day's end, flood waters moving downstream from upstate New York reached the already swollen Susquehanna, which breached the levee at Wilkes-Barre and forced thousands to flee to higher ground, the service reported.

In an eerie sight, caskets from a Forty Fort cemetery floated downstream on the swollen Susquehanna.

Reaching a depth of 13 feet in parts of Harrisburg, water from the Susquehanna inundated the first floor of the Governor's Mansion. The Schuylkill River reached a record 31 feet, 6 inches at Reading, where more than 100 homes were destroyed.

Remembering Agnes

Jay Zane, Schuylkill County Historical Society president, said it's important to remember the lessons taught by Agnes.

"Agnes emphasized the fact that history does repeat itself," said Zane, a Pottsville attorney. "While we cannot stop bad storms, we do need to be prepared to mitigate the harm that will be caused by future storms."

The historical society sponsored "Agnes + 50," which drew more than 100 persons to the Majestic Theater.

Glore, co-author of "Schuylkill County Firefighting" with Michael J. Kitsock, moderated a slide presentation on the big screen that chronicled the storm's effect on Schuylkill County.

Photographs from the historical society's archive, originally published in the Pottsville Republican on June 23, 1972, showed widespread devastation across the county.

In one dramatic image, water cascades from the beast of the dam at Buery's Grove, northwest of Minersville. Broad Street in Tamaqua's business district took on the appearance of a tributary to the Schuylkill River.

An almost unbelievable photo showed a mobile home floating past Port Clinton, a low-lying village on the county's southern extreme. Half-submerged cars appear to be floating down Columbia Street in Schuylkill Haven.

The incredible velocity of raging flood waters toppled a twin high voltage power line near Middleport. And water rose to the the doors of a high-axle National Guard vehicle rescuing stranded residents of Pine Grove, one of the hardest hit towns.

Flood waters surged to five feet deep, giving the parking lot outside King's department store on the Minersville highway the look of a swimming pool.

Only the roof of a submerged vehicle could be seen outside Julian's tavern near the Mount Carbon arch.

Water poured from the raised loading docks at Aetna Steel in Pottsville, surrounded a Methodist church in Gordon and cut a channel through the main street in Tremont.

Glore's presentation included a digitized version of 8mm footage showing Yorkville Hose Company firefighters in Port Carbon and Lykens.

Collectively, Glore said, the images demonstrate the awesome power of nature.

"We can do what we can to control nature," said Glore, deputy fire chief in Reading, "but we can never stop it."

Lasting impressions

F. Allen Artz III, a well-known Pottsville church organist, experienced a few harrowing moments retrieving his mother and a troop of Girl Scouts from the Appalachian Trail near Pine Grove.

"Everybody was in a panic trying to get to them before the bridges washed out," recalled Artz, who attended the "Agnes + 50" presentation.

The Artz family, which lived in Llewellyn, had relatives in Lykens, just over the Schuylkill County line in Dauphin County. On the way to assist them, Artz recalled seeing one of the most incredible events of the storm.

A silt dam burst in Sheridan, a patch in Porter Township, and caused a mudslide that struck the town.

Glore showed a slide of firefighters shoveling muck from the doorway to a home in Sheridan.

Michael J. Kitsock was a 19-year-old college student living in Mahanoy Plane when Agnes displayed her watery wrath.

"It rained hour after hour, day after day, I had never seen it rain so hard," recalls Kitsock, a retired teacher. "The water was bubbling up out of the ground in Gilberton."

Kitsock pitched in with firefighters struggling to keep up with the rising tide.

"They were pumping 50,000 gallons a minute," he recalls, "and they couldn't keep up with it."

It was a logistical nightmare for first responders, he said, who were unprepared for a storm of Agnes' magnitude.

Tragedy struck several days after the storm passed, and left a lasting impression on Kitsock.

Robert Joyce, 52, partially disabled from a mining accident, slipped on a footbridge and fell into the raging waters of Mahanoy Creek.

"It was the first death in Schuylkill County connected with the effects of Tropical Storm Agnes," the Shenandoah Evening Herald reported.

Kitsock, who says it was the county's only death attributed to the storm, knew Joyce. The footbridge, a short cut to the town's post office, lay behind the Kitsock home.

A half-century later, he retains images of sadness and desperation etched into the faces of people who lost their homes and possessions.

"I was a young man, and I had never experienced anything like it, or since," he said. "I watched with tears in my eyes."

Contact the writer: rdevlin@republicanherald.com; 570-628-6007