Carroll County, MD CCG 24 News, 12 Sep 2022

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From YouTube: Agnes in Carroll: 50 Years Later

Description

50 years ago, Carroll County experienced damaging and costly flooding due to the effects of Hurricane Agnes. Carroll’s Audio/Video Production, in collaboration with Land and Resource Management, presents eyewitness accounts, along with videos and photos from the time. “Agnes in Carroll: 50 Years Later” commemorates the resilience of the citizens and employees of Carroll County, and examines measures taken in the years since to prevent another disaster of this magnitude.
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June of 1972 in carroll county was much like any other in the state of maryland.

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Work life and play continued as usual for the citizens of the county as the end of.

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School as well as the beginning of summer was celebrated. Hurricane season had begun on june 1st.

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And while subtropical storm alpha had caused the southern coast of the united states, some flooding.

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Beach erosion and downed trees and power lines maryland had remained unscathed on.

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June 14th, a tropical depression was spawned over the yucatan peninsula and on june 19th.

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Hurricane agnes made landfall in florida weekend after her path, inland agnes.

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Re-Strengthened into a tropical storm over the atlantic and once again made landfall in.

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New york, but not before she left her mark on maryland and more specifically carroll county.

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The amount of rain brought by agnes de carroll was comparable only to totals in pennsylvania.

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And new york and the severe local flooding cost an estimated 10 million dollars in damage.

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To the county, roads, bridges and rail lines were destroyed and necessary services such.

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As power, water, sewer and telephone were unavailable for days as the water receded.

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This is when the people of our community joined together to grasp what had happened.

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And began working together to move forward.

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We moved to union bridge a couple houses up the street back in 1970 in june, right after.

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I graduated from high school, but I've been working here since I was 13 years old. My father bought the.

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Business back in 1968 and it's a family business we've been here ever since so we're about 55.

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50 53 or 54 years in this business right now, this area been in the area. All my life grew up over.

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Outside of linwood there along route 75 and lived there from the time I was six years old.

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1958 we moved there, so we moved right into the flood zone. Didn't know it at the time or I didn't.

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Know that time I was a kid in the summer of 70, I went to work for carroll county of summer, help out.

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Inspections of subdivisions that were being built- and I worked their summer at 70 summer 71- then I.

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Graduated from frederick community college in 72 and then went full time with the county in june of.

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72 june 12th of 72., as far as the county goes, I don't know how much preparation time they had and.

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Again, things were quite different than what they are now with the number of people the county had.

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The you know the equipment they had. This didn't happen in those days, so there probably wasn't my.

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Guess there probably wasn't a lot of preparation because they just didn't have the ability.

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And maybe even the forecast, you know the knowledge of what was going on as what we live with today.

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That we're very familiar with today, you have weeks notice of the storms brewing in the atlantic.

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You know they make these projections where they're going to go and you can follow them for.

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A week two weeks at a time it just wasn't quite that way in 1970. that morning it started raining.

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And you know, no one knew you know they kept saying it was going to rain throughout the day.

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And you know, of course people lived in union bridge here and myself. You know.

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We've never experienced anything like that. So during the day you know you you had, it was raining.

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But like I say that evening, it was probably within an hour and a half two hours is when it was most.

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When it actually came out of the banks, and then it just flooded, because we actually.

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Got all the runoff you know from like uh new windsor mckenzie's mill westminster to water.

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Was flowing downstream, it was the current was just that heavy. It was uh kind of devastating for.

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Everybody here, because no one understood you know exactly what the pressure of the water would do.

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My father and I left here uh to go to uniontown to uh for an accident. We were only going probably.

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About an hour, maybe hour and 10 minutes, and when we left we drove through water when we left town.

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When we got back here, water was growing across the hood of the tow truck and we had a ford tow.

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Truck at the time and water was running across the hood of the truck when we came back through town.

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When the storm actually hit, the worst part was, I remember, I kind of came through the night.

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And I was at home- and I remember spending the evening kind of back and forth between the.

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Neighbors houses, of course, we could no longer travel the road in front of our house. The old.

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Route 75 because it was underwater, I was in the basement, and the water was up on.

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The basement windows at that point and carrying the items up and the basement windows broke in.

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And neither say the water followed me up the steps getting out of the basement, the immensity of it.

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You know just stand there in the yard and look at that water and, as far as you can see across to the.

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Railroad track and on the other side was water. It was really mind-boggling. We had seen high waters.

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There at the house before I think there was maybe in 68, because I know I have my driver's license.

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And I'd gotten them in 68, and I think there was a flood come through that summer.

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While the school year was out wasn't near as bad needless to say, it did get up high enough. It was.

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You know flooded over the old road from my father's house.

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But it didn't get, it was probably three four, maybe five feet less than what it was during.

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Agnes, you know the water out all the way up to the very front of our house. I think you may have.

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A picture of the water after went down some from over around the new route 75 at the time and.

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I'm not sure I guess it was the following day, then.

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That we laid boards across the ditch line between route 75 and the red farmhouse.

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Mcconnell's farmhouse we've laid planking across that ditch line because the water was flowing.

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Through on that side, the road and I walked out- and they picked me up and I went into work.

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The day of the flood, I think we had about between eight and nine inches of rain. That afternoon.

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And the waters came up and there was hardly enough time for anybody to move anything because the.

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Water came up so fast, it was, it was the 100-year flood. No one expected it, so it was something that.

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Was very new to everybody in the community as far as right through here water went all the way as.

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High as anybody seen for a long time, it went right to the railroad track right here on main street.

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Covered a railroad track right here, where I'm setting. If you look at the top of the doorway.

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There was eight foot of water right here and you know I'd be sitting in eight foot of water right.

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Now you know there was a couple of vehicles that got washed away that were downstream, like a mile.

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Mile and a half, so it's uh just something: we hope we never see again that much water at one time.

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At that time, the highway system, the highway department, was totally different than what.

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You find today today there's all different bureaus and bureau chiefs and you've got a.

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Director at the top and then deputy directors and then bureau chiefs at that time there was.

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One guy, he was the engineer for the county and he managed everything and actually he did everything.

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He was an engineer he surveyed. He handled the inspections he handled maintenance.

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Everything fell under him and there was no individual party in between you know. He.

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Managed to road cruise, he managed to survey crew and actually actually did the surveying himself.

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So it's just an entirely different operation. So when you needed somebody me being out on.

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Inspections didn't mean anything, you know, I went out myself and the.

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Instrument, man on the survey crew and a truck driver for roads and our job for.

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About the next week was barricading roads and became my introduction to just how much.

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Damage there was around over the county because we saw a lot of it.

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There was just so many bridges, and so many small structures washed out roadways washed out.

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Ditch lines washed out pavement washed away and particularly in the south carol area, you know.

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Piney run had not been built yet and the devastation below what is the breast of.

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Piney run was just out just amazing, you know the roads were gone, the stream ran where the road was.

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And you know some place of the road was buried by debris. Three, four, five foot deep and other.

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Places the road was gone three or four foot deep and it really tore things up down through there.

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We had family right across the street, they were going to stay in their house and finally, the.

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Water got so high that the fire department had to rescue them with a boat and bring them out.

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And another family down off of george street was the same way canary lane and george street. They.

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Thought they were going to stay in their house, and the fire company had to rescue them with a.

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Boat also- and that was this end of union bridge, but the south side of town, where the frederick and.

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Carroll county line is a bridge there that goes over sam's creek. A tractor-trailer was coming.

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In the road that night and the bridge collapsed with the tractor-trailer, the tractor went down.

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Over the bridge, the driver was floating away and he grabbed onto a tree, and the fire department had.

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To go and rescue him with also a boat, because a little bit longer I mean the water kept on rising.

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And he probably would have drowned but uh and then that that bridge was out of service for about six.

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Or eight months that he got a new bridge put in right behind us was a trucking company mitchell.

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Transport and uh they had a tractor trailer, sat in there with 25 ton of sand on it and it washed that.

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Tractor trailer down through the pasture back there, probably about five or six hundred yards.

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Down into the field, just by the force of water, um you know, and we've tried to sense that tried to.

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Educate people that the force of the water is very, it's very damaging. Try to keep them.

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So they don't go into the water after a flood because uh it could wash them away. Of course,.

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You don't know what the roadway is under the water, it could road could be washed out, and you.

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Don't really know it. The first thing, like I said you always have to do, is make things safe. Try to.

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Prevent people from being their own worst enemy and driving into the open holes, and there was.

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The first couple days was spent doing those type of things just barricading roads and.

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But right, along with that, we had situations where people were trapped. There was no way.

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Out so they were the first place you tackle and you wouldn't start making whatever emergency.

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Repairs that you could detour, you know that was that was a mess and the fire companies come in.

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And neighbors come in and I know the national guard I believe, come in places and then helped out.

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But it was just you know the typical small county out of what we had, maybe 70 000 80 000 population.

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At the time and everybody in the community knows everybody, everybody just helped each other out.

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The way it is in carroll, county and still kind of that way today, even though we've.

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We've changed a good bit, probably about 12 to 14 hours before it receded, went back into the banks.

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And then, of course, at that time it was time to start the cleanup project and.

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We were very fortunate that everyone in town- you know that wasn't affected by the flood, tried to.

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Help everybody that was affected by the flood, so it was a lot of cleanup a lot of hauling of.

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Debris a lot of hauling of people's personal properties that were in their houses, mars's super.

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Thrift across the street they had like five foot of water inside the building, so everything inside.

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The store had to be taken out and hauled away to the landfill because they couldn't use it once.

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You got everything out of the debris out of the way of scraping up the mud. It was actually just.

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Using scrapers and scoop shovels scraping the mud out because you couldn't wash it. It was like an.

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Inch and a half thick, and it was just so greasy- you had to be very careful, you could fall down and.

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Injure yourself, that was the worst thing. It was just like it's worse than working in a barnyard.

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Anywhere, just so greasing the fire department kept some people at the fire hall on cots and stuff.

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Because they had nowhere to go, fed them there and there's different families in the town of.

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Union bridge that you know during the process of trying to get cleaned up, there were people.

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In town that brought people lunches and dinners, you know, while we were cleaning up so it was.

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It was a good effort by everybody in town to try to you know in the clean up process that took.

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Probably about two weeks or that's, you know to get all the mud, cleaned up and.

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Even today, every now and then you might hit on something and you still have mud coming out from.

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You know back at that time. You know it was just overwhelming to see how much.

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Damage there was, and you kind of stand there and look at it and say.

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Where do you start? What do we do next? um How are we ever going to get this done with what we have.

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But you just each situation, you just address it as it came and tried to set a priority to it. You know.

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We always tried to run with fire departments and stuff if they had fires, if they had emergencies.

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Not only just in this storm, but in any storm, you know where snowstorm or whatever we always respond.

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With them, if they need the help and you're keeping all that going and the flood during the flooding.

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You know getting their their equipment in and out help solve situations, just the scope of it becomes.

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Mind-Boggling, so many of the structures were old structures and many of them are wooden structures.

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That just literally picked up and floated away during the storm and when you go to put them back.

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The conditions that you had to design them with in the 70s was much different when they were some.

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Of them were put in 100 years before we made an effort to clear debris as soon as they accumulated.

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Under structures, we actually come up and was able to get a bridge crew going and that wasn't to.

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Build structures but to maintain them and they spent their entire year other than snow removal.

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Or other emergencies just going around maintaining bridges, keeping it clean keeping the brush.

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Cut away from and keeping the waterways open, keeping the debris and stuff that comes downstream.

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All the time, I remember one of the worst areas for talking about debris. With starters dam, there was.

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So much stuff that came down out of pennsylvania and commended under starner's, damn bridge.

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That we spent a lot of time up there and with chainsaws. You know down in the flood plain down.

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You know in the waterway almost itself, you know clearing and cutting up and moving out.

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Agnes was in 72, 75 was eloise, uh eloise was uh not near as bad. uh I think at eloise we.

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Had about instead of eight foot, we had about almost five foot of water here in the station.

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You know, and then you know that was like two floods within several years and my dad was too.

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The point at that time he thought about just saying the heck with it and moving out, but.

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You know it was like you know everything you had, you know he had washed away so and um you know.

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Everybody in the community and everything like the people in the town and everybody says you know.

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You've been here for a long time, we don't want you to leave, and uh you know that was in 75 and.

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Here it is 19, I mean it's 20 22 and we're still operating in the same place. But it's something.

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That we've learned to deal with we have now that you know uh my brother and I you know, and and.

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We have you know when the water's coming up. It's raining. We look at the stream, we know how long.

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It's going to be or we're about, and we put plywood on the lift. We put the tool boxes on the left.

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Raise them up in air, get our belongings there and we move the customer's vehicles out and it's.

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Just something you learn to deal with: they talk about fixing the stream and fixing the flooding.

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But a lot of this was man-made, because I've been here long enough. Nobody understands that.

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Back behind us mitchell transport, when that was built, there was a lot of dirt haul in there to.

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Raise their elevation mars is stored here, which is flood zone now from the corner. Here at this.

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Building to the corner of their building they're five foot higher than we are, and at one time.

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This was all flat and level through here, so when it's it's, of course you couldn't do that now in.

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A flood zone but back in the 60s and the 70s. No one thought about that, so they elevated, so they.

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Could keep from being in the flood, and so we kind of like man-made, our our own little lake around.

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Here so you know, water comes up where it used to flow through. It doesn't flow through anymore.

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It has to go somewhere, so it goes around those properties and then just floods. So it's it's.

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Something you have to learn to deal with, I think the big boom that came out of it for the county.

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Was how much we were able to replace and get new structures built in this county.

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Those 40- and I think I say three years later- we lost an additional 30.

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On top of the 40, we lost three years before it just put this county in really good footing for.

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Structures where you know you hear reports on tv and every year they talk about. You know because.

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Everybody goes through a two-year bridge cycle of having them inspected and it's always come out. You.

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Know insufficient bridges and and bad bridges and all that and how much is going to cost billions of.

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Dollars across the country, we were way ahead way ahead of the curve on that, after those two floods.

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Of replacing bad structures and getting things up, the par really put us ahead in.

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A lot of the country a lot of the rest of the country in the 50 years since.

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Agnes struck the east coast. Carroll county has worked to make its residents safer from floods.

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Carroll county has adopted stormwater management regulations that require facilities.

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Like the langdon and willowpond facilities, carroll county has built flood control structures like.

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Piney run dam and carroll county has restored streams in areas like mayberry and woodside.

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Another storm like agnes could come at any time and, as we see more frequent and more intense.

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Storms, we must remain vigilant, but we are far better prepared when carroll county is hit with.

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Future disasters, we will continue to protect our residents, their property and the natural.

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And built environment from hazards through public outreach, mitigation, preparedness and resiliency.

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