River Stay 'Way From My Door

Sure, it’s dicey having to go down on snowy days and worrying whether you can stop if the light turns red. But there are benefits to living on a hill. Example: On Monday noon, the river was running about four feet; Tuesday noon it was twenty-three feet, which is slightly over the banks. i.e: Flood stage in River City.

Good luck, those of you in lower South Wilkes-Barre; we'll send a boat from higher North Wilkes-Barre. Water runs downhill, or has been for the last 4.5 billion years, and from our vantage point up here at the top of North Franklin, we can see the river rising, going over the bank and being constrained (so far) by the levee system.

It’s interesting living in River City, no matter where that might be located, or what its actual name is. The same issues exist in all of them.

Ours include watching the snowmelt or heavy rainfall in the lower tier of New York State. Or, to put it another way, what happens in Binghamton doesn’t stay in Binghamton; it makes its way down to Wilkes-Barre in a couple of days. Inevitably. When the weatherman says “crest,” he doesn’t mean a brand of toothpaste.

If there has been an especially heavy rainfall with high winds up north of us, we can expect not only lots of water but loads of debris. That’s not good for bridges or houses built too close to the river’s edge. Why live there? “My grandpappy’s house; we just re-build each flood. It’s where we live; ain’t gonna move. No, sir.”