CHENANGO COUNTY – Traditionally, the Fourth of July weekend is spent by the pool, around the barbecue, and enjoying the outdoors with family and friends.
Not this year.
Brenda Caldwell, Bainbridge, spent her holiday weekend recovering from last week’s flood.
“It’s been a horrible, horrible mess,” she said. “The main road to get here (route 7) is still closed. My land is completely devastated.”
Caldwell said she and her family usually host a reunion, which brings visitors from as far away as New Mexico. This year, she told them all to reschedule.
“My brother-in-law still came from New Hampshire to help us clean up,” she said. “We weren’t sure how he was going to get here, but thankfully, he found a way.”
Caldwell’s neighbors, Jack and Margaret Butler, said they were mortified when they saw what four and a half feet of water had done to their home, car and property.
“You never think something like this will happen,” Margaret Butler, 84, said.
The Butlers, fortunately, had family members free to come and help with the aftermath.
“As soon as I heard the news, I began to cry. I just felt so bad that they were dealing with this all by themselves,” daughter Christine Lanford, St. Petersburg, Fla., said. “You would not believe what I had to go through to get here. I got on a plane first thing Wednesday morning and I didn’t get here until late (Friday). Thank God for the fire department, and all of the other volunteers who got them pumped out.”
In Sidney, Ampehnol Corporation is still flooded. Employees at Mead Westvaco will return back to work Wednesday after a week off to recover.
In Oxford, Marsha Jones said she was still pumping water out of her basement Saturday evening.
“I don’t know, it’s still coming,” she said, standing outside of her County Route 220 home. “My weekend plans have changed from visiting my sister in Lake Placid to pumping out my basement and cleaning up my house. It’s been a horrible weekend.”
Lanford, who left her three children and husband behind to make this emergency trip home, said she is sad to miss out on their family plans, but is grateful to see her parents are doing well.
“We’ve cleared off the back deck, so we can have our own mini barbecue out here if we wanted,” she said. “Yeah, my plans for the Fourth of July have been altered - I definitely did not plan on standing in four feet of stale, flooded water, picking out some of my childhood memories that have been ruined - but at least my mom and dad are OK.”