A year of recovery has followed the hundred-year flood that left a torrent of devastation through the heart of the county.

Mother Nature surreptitiously moved a combination of storm systems through the Southern Tier in the last week of June 2006, depositing 8 to 15 inches of rain at some locations. The average warning time prior to the severe weather was only seven hours. New York’s goal in disaster situations is to warn citizens at least six hours ahead of a serious event.

Hydrologic conditions in Chenango and the Susquehanna basin in general were already wet from earlier storms. The inevitable result was increased runoff that caused flash flooding at many river locations.

“It was a wet year to begin with. The water table was very high and when we received those late June storms, there was just simply nowhere for the water to go except up,” said Chenango County’s Emergency Management Deputy Director Matt Beckwith.

The most severe flooding during the storm that covered several states occurred in the Chenango and Susquehanna rivers. Greene, Sherburne and Binghamton were among many municipalities which suffered drastic record floods dating back decades, even centuries. As an example of the extreme nature of the event, Sherburne’s flood was so severe that it was officially recorded as a 500 interval event and Greene’s was considered a 500 year plus interval event.