After Agnes: The Agony of Wilkes-Barre

AMERICAN SCENE

THE statistics have been recorded and the books shut on the devastation caused by tropical storm Agnes two months ago: 118 dead, 116,000 dwellings damaged or destroyed, more than $3 billion worth of property damaged, 206 counties and 27 cities turned into official disaster areas. But the private suffering of its victims is more difficult to measure and--so far--without end. TIME Correspondent Marguerite Michaels recently visited Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in the area hardest hit by the storm. Her report:

The brown mud from the Susquehanna River has now dried to a white dust. It settles over everything and rims the eyes red. Only 10% of downtown Wilkes-Barre, once under 5 ft. of water, has reopened for business. Piles of debris still clutter the streets. Skulls and limbs washed from the Forty Fort Cemetery are still turning up in backyards. Block after block of houses have been gutted so that you can see from the front yard through to the back. Shrubbery has turned brown-gray; lawns are expanses of dried, cracked mud.

Of the 15,000 families still left homeless in the Wyoming Valley, only 7,100 have been housed by HUD. Some remain camped in the evacuation center an hour out of town. Others are living in the partially damaged second floors of their houses, without water or electricity. Most are still with friends or relatives in quarters so cramped that they are fast breeding enemies. The elderly were the hardest hit. Almost a third of those affected were over 55. Many are living in hotel rooms until HUD can move them into mobile homes or new apartment buildings that have been designed for them.

HUD is now delivering 120 new trailers a day, and is still far behind the demand. But the majority of Wilkes-Barre citizens hope one day to repair or rebuild their own houses. Many Wyoming Valley residents are of Polish and Slovak stock. Their hearts are in their homes; to possess a home is to possess everything. And they are the core of the movement to bring the valley back.

Frank Nowak, 43, a maintenance man for the local RCA plant, is lucky because his house is still standing. He figures it will take a $22,000 loan to rebuild it the way it was. Thumbing through an album showing the house before the flood, with its trim lawn and clipped rose garden, Nowak says: "If I get this place fixed up and somebody comes knocking on my door to say urban renewal is going to tear it down, there's going to be a fight."

Those who cannot look forward to moving back in before winter, loan or no loan, sit and wait for the trailers from HUD; arrows on large, hand-painted signs show the HUD drivers where the trailers should be placed--if and when they come. The arrival of the trailer often marks the start of another long, frustrating wait. Harry and Gladys Nusbaum spent 16 days in their trailer with no water, sewage, heat, electricity. Last week the water, sewage and electricity were hooked up, but there is still no heat. Harry, who drove his own bakery truck, no longer has a job because the bakery was flooded. "Maybe it's a good thing he lost his job," says Gladys. "It gives him a chance to spend all day on the phone to HUD. It's always tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Tomorrow is winter, and this thing is cold at night. I don't know. Every time I look over at the house I get sick. It's just a hole in the ground. I'm 50, Harry's 63. We'll survive, but I don't know what for; sometimes I wish I could have gone with the house. Every time we look at it, we think the nightmare will be over--we'll wake up and everything will be all right."

The debris thrown into the streets tells the story in chapters. The first thing out of the house was the mud. Next went the stuffed furniture, ruined by mildew. People were still trying to save their small appliances after they had scrapped televisions, washers, refrigerators. When they realized they couldn't fix the toasters and blenders either, they too went out onto the street. Then they stripped the wet plaster and finally the flooring, till only the shell remained.

Through the time of the mud, there was a frenzy to clean up, and there was hope and expectation. Now the guts of the houses lie out in the street, and the magnitude of the damage stuns. Everyone is tired. Nerves are stretched and tempers short. Families are waiting to see what their neighbors will do--and what the Government will do. And, cruelly, on Sundays the tourists descend, pointing at the wreckage and aiming their Instamatics. Some have got spit on their lenses.

"People are going through a period of desolation," says Dr. Edward Whalen, staff psychiatrist at the county mental health center. "The number of people seeking help doubled in the fifth week after the flood. One man finished all the cleaning, then sat in front of his house for three days with the hose in his hand, not moving. His wife brought him in and he's functioning now." So far, five valley residents have committed suicide because of the flood.

For some, adversity has proved the mother of equality. One gaily forlorn crack: "Glad I knew you when you had money." Recalls George Spohrer, a leading lawyer in Wilkes-Barre: "It was back in the days when we were wading knee-deep in mud. Everyone looked as bad as the next. A neighbor stopped shoveling mud, walked over to me and said. Two things I'm learning from this disaster. One: a 25-c- calendar covers the wall like a $10,000 painting. Two: when your furniture is out on the curb, it doesn't look any different from anybody else's.' "

Adversity has also spawned heroics and malice in equal measure. Lutherans, Mennonites and other volunteer groups continue to arrive by the busload from surrounding areas to help people clean out their homes by day, while by night, looters steal the minor domestic treasures spread out on the lawn to dry. Loretta Curley left her flooded house on July 1. She came back on Aug. 10 to find looters had taken one toilet, light fixtures, a sink, fittings and accessories, doorknobs, the kitchen light, the record collection and two snow tires.

The citizens of Wilkes-Barre are still putting up a brave front. Hand-painted signs display both hope and humor: THE "VALLEY WITH A HEART" COMING BACK BETTER THAN EVER; GOD STILL LOVES US, I GUESS; KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL--DON'T LITTER. But the ordeal is far from over and the outcome far from certain. Says one store owner: "Oh, I say, 'Comin' back better than ever,' and 'Rebuild we will,' but I don't believe it. How is business going to get started again? Who has money to spend?" Says another: "This is either going to be the goddamndest greatest town in the country or the goddamndest ghost town." But one thing does seem certain--no one in Wilkes-Barre will soon again take his river for granted. "I cleaned out whole shelves of books the other day," says Newspaper Reporter Libby Brennan, "and came across this book called The Beautiful Susquehanna. I threw it out."

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