Across the county, cleanup begins as people assess damage

PHILIPSBURG — The wet remains of Hurricane Ivan, it seemed, spared no area of Centre County overnight Friday.

Here are a few scenes from around the county:

Flooded out — again

Nancy and Robert Snyder, retirees in Philipsburg, had to flee their Moshannon Street home in the middle of the night to escape floodwaters and sewage flowing into their home because of the heavy rains.

Before leaving, they put what they could up on tables borrowed from their church.

“We put furniture, clothing up on tables to try to save it,” Nancy Snyder said. “I had neighbors, people from our church, family over, working as hard as we could to save family videos, pictures.”

The couple are staying at their son’s home across town until the floodwaters recede. There, “it’s a beautiful day, like it never even flooded,” she said.

The Snyders’ home, is a different story.

“The house is full of water, the carpet is full of water,” Nancy Snyder said. “We came back this morning, and my husband had to carry me in on his back.”

The couple have lived on Moshannon Street for more than 40 years and had just finished cleaning up after last week’s flooding, Nancy Snyder said. They’re not sure yet how much of their belongings might be salvageable, and they have no flood insurance.

“It would have cost us a fortune, just to insure the structure. That doesn’t even include the property inside,” Nancy Snyder said. “We can’t afford to start over, though. This is a nightmare.”

Milesburg wrings out

As the skies turned from stormy gray to blue Saturday afternoon, lifelong resident Pat Moyer and her husband, Dean, tried to pump the basement of their Water Street home dry.

“(The water is) totally surrounding my whole environment,” Pat Moyer said as she stood on the dry sidewalk and looked back at the island her home had become.

“We lost everything in the basement, all my canning supplies,” she said.

“Two truckloads are going to the landfill Monday,” Dean Moyer added.

At the intersection of Water and Centre streets, the Fenush family used their pool pump to drain the 3 to 4 inches of water from their basement and counted their blessings.

Deanie Fenush said her family was luckier than most. She’d already heard stories of lost pools, full basements and damaged homes from her neighbors. “We’ve lived here since 1974 and we’ve never had water in our basement,” she said.

The stamps are dry, though

When Bob Lamb, executive director of the American Philatelic Society in Bellefonte, pulled into the parking lot of the building, his heart sank. The parking lot of the historic Match Factory, where the stamp society had recently opened its headquarters, was flooded.

But after Lamb waded through the ankle-deep water coming from Logan Branch and made his way into the building, he breathed a guarded sigh of relief.

“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” he said. “There’s water on the floor of two of the buildings. We did not lose any of our stamps, though.”

The group purchased the Match Factory, built 1899 by the Pennsylvania Match Co., in 2001 and renovations were completed in August 2003. The group held its first open house this June.

Lamb said about 40 percent of the developed portion of the Match Factory was flooded Saturday. He expects professional cleaners will have to be hired to take care of the water-logged carpet in those buildings.

By early afternoon, the waters had begun to recede, Lamb said.

“It’s dropped an inch since I arrived here,” Lamb said. “The water is flowing very fast.”

No playing through

Cocoa-colored torrents rising from Slab Cabin Run, a tributary of Spring Creek, put two fairways under water and closed the golf course at the Centre Hills Country Club.

“Two greens are now island greens,” said Rick Pagett, golf-course superintendent at the country club between State College and Lemont. He said flood levels there peaked about 5 a.m. Saturday and had receded only a foot by midafternoon.

“I don’t see it opening until at least Monday, maybe Tuesday,” Pagett said.

Staff writers Erin Nissley, Lara Brenckle and Adam Smeltz contributed to this report.