Mary A. Shafer, Author

Award:

Devastation on the Delaware was named a "Notable Book" by Writers Notes Magazine in their 2006 Annual Book Awards.

Synopsis:

August 18-20, 1955: Three terrifying days and nights still remembered with awe in the Delaware River valley. Record-breaking rainfall from hurricanes Connie and Diane abruptly ended a withering drought, but the relief was short lived. It was soon overshadowed by terror and destruction that tore away bridges and ripped houses from their foundations. From the river’s headwaters in the Catskills and through the Poconos, excessive runoff surged down steep slopes and through valleys on both sides of the river.

Tributaries swelled unbelievably, some rising thirty feet in fifteen minutes. Eventually, they all poured into the Delaware, transforming the usually placid waters into a raging, uncontrollable beast. Mountain resorts were inundated, leaving cars upended in swimming pools. Entire summer camps were washed away. More than 400 children were evacuated by helicopter from island camps in a tense, unprecedented operation.

In the end, nearly a hundred people were dead and hundreds more homeless. Dozens were missing, some ripped, still sleeping, from their beds in the middle of the night. Victims’ bodies were still being recovered thirty years later -- some were never found.

Devastation on the Delaware follows the true stories of survivors and eyewitnesses to bring these events to chilling life. More than 100 historical photos and a dozen maps illustrate this definitive account of a tragic event that changed life in the Delaware Valley forever.

Review Excerpts:
"...transports the reader back to 1955 to relive the storm through the accounts of the survivors. Told in present tense, the narrative recreates the urgency of the events. Shafer proves a masterful storyteller. An important book ... For the survivors...a validating experience. For area natives, a record of what may have been the single most life-changing event in the Valley’s history. For everyone now living, the book is a reminder of the Delaware’s power and of our inability to control nature.

Exhaustively researched and chockfull of statistics and verifiable facts, [this is not] a dry history. The reader experiences the emotions and activities of this tragic event. In this way, Shafer -- and we -- honor those who survived as well as those who did not."

"Skillfully interweaving scientific data, media and personal accounts, Shafer shows a region largely unaware -- and unprepared for -- the impending disaster. ...Shafer is a master at building tension, cutting in and out of accounts, leaving us wondering whether individuals will make it to higher ground, or be taken by the current.

And amid the sense of doom and gloom there is hope and humor. The legions of helpers descending on the beleaguered river towns, the husband in Bucks County asking his wife when's the last time she cleaned the mud-covered floor.

Shafer doesn't propose any fixes, and I'm not sure there are any. Long after memories of 1955, 2004 and 2005 have receded, people will continue to live along the river, some oblivious, others respectful of its awesome power."

Book excerpt:
Back on Ash Street in Scranton, the Highfields have been upstairs since water started seeping in under the door. Surely, they’d thought, it can’t keep rising. But it has kept rising, and now the house is surrounded by raging water. They have waited too long to leave.

Terrified, they flinch every time something hits the house. They know when it’s something large not just by the louder thud it makes, but also by the vibration they feel along the floorboards. Chunks of plaster have begun falling from the walls and ceilings. Things are being knocked from shelves and dishes rattle in the cupboards. Their home can no longer keep them safe.

There’s only one thing to do, thinks Elliott. They need to get out to the roof, where someone will see them and they can signal for help. He grabs Ella’s hand and leads her to the bedroom window overlooking the front porch roof. As he begins opening the window, she suddenly understands, and lets out a choked whimper of fear. Elliott throws up the sash and takes her hand.

Ella gives him a pained look as she sits on the sill. Trying to remain modest, she holds her dress tight against her trembling legs and swings them over the sill to the shingles. She runs her shoes across the granular surface before standing up. It’s wet, and she’s afraid she’ll slip off.

Stay near the wall, he tells her, and hold on. I’m right behind you.

Meanwhile, down near Washington Avenue, more than fifty would-be evacuees are marooned. They had been escorted from their neighborhood in an amphibious DUKW -- or "duck" -- vehicle, driven by Marine Corps Reservists of the Sixth Truck Company. When it had turned left onto River Street, in front of Bill’s Lunch, even with all their weight on the heavy truck hadn’t provided enough friction to overcome the lift of several feet of swiftly moving water.

They feel themselves floating toward the brick building. Next thing they know, the duck wheels are pinned against the curb. The back of the vehicle jams against a mailbox. They won’t be going anywhere else.

The driver radios his dispatcher, and tense moments click by until an aerial ladder truck arrives from the city fire department. The firemen extend the ladder across the roiling current, and one of them crosses to the duck. One at a time, he holds small children in one arm and the side rails with the other. He carefully negotiates each step. Trying not to become mesmerized by the water churning just feet below, he makes himself concentrate on making each step. He looks at the ladder rungs. Only the rungs.

He and his colleagues take turns bringing the children across, then escort the women. Finally, the men come across on their own. Crouched in a now-familiar waddle, they hope the ladder will hold out. Everyone can hear it creaking under the stress of a job it was not designed to do. As the last man steps off, there is a brief and subdued cheer before the fire truck takes off with its precious new cargo and a badly damaged ladder.

It will be none too soon -- the area will quickly be completely awash.

East of town, past the Number Seven Reservoir of the Scranton-Springbrook Water Service Company, there are several streams, usually so nondescript they don’t even have names. But tonight, one of them is emerging from obscurity as it tears down the embankment toward Roaring Brook. On its way, it gouges out an area fifty feet wide and twenty feet deep beneath the DL&W tracks.

Gravity drops the now unsupported steel rails of all three DL&W lines into the raging cataract, along with millions of tons of heavy square ties and ballast from the rail bed. This debris washes down into the main channel of the brook.

Further upstream, past the curve beneath the Erie maintenance shops, the same runoff volume that gave the no-name stream its impetus now brings Roaring Brook fully to life. Its waters swell to the very tops of the bank; thirty and forty feet up, then over.

The force of it first kidnaps the train that was to deliver the MOW crane, smashing its cars into kindling. Then the ravenous creek chews at the earth beneath the crane. There is a great clanking and moaning of failing steel as the behemoth machine succumbs to its own massive weight, collapsing into the water. Finally, the arm of water grabs the crane itself, pushing it a hundred yards while spinning it completely around in a tortured, ungainly pirouette. Finally, it dashes the crane against one of the shop buildings, where it crumples in defeat. The surge recedes.