|
By FRED MILLER, Review Staff Writer
NEW CUMBERLAND - Dean Shultz rode out the Flood of '04 -
for 12 hours, through Saturday night to Sunday morning -
shivering with his two dogs in a nine-foot aluminum rowboat
tied to a tree next to his trailer home, as the flooding Ohio
River flowed underneath them.
Along with a half-dozen other men, Shultz had worked
through Friday night and all day Saturday to move other
people's campers out of Edgewater Park, a blue-collar trailer
park/camp park located between the Ohio River and the
pond-like backwaters of Tomlinson Run on Route 2, north of New
Cumberland.
Exhausted, Shultz laid down to rest and fell asleep in his
trailer. He awoke at 10 p.m. with water coming into his
trailer and the nearest dry land 200 yards away, in the dark,
across five-feet-deep, fast-moving flood water.
Not knowing how high the water might eventually get, he
figured the safest place for the three of them was in his
rowboat.
"I didn't really plan to ride it out," said the
self-employed painter and construction worker. "I took my
motorcycle out and came back, and took my truck out with a
load, and when I came back my truck stalled out in the water."
The other men - some of whom also rode out the flood, but
in trailers or frame houses on slightly higher ground - helped
Shultz push his truck up next to one of the houses.
Then he went to sleep.
With the river crest earlier predicted at 39.3 feet, Shultz
thought the water was about as high as it would go. But while
he slept, it rose to near its crest of 44 feet.
"I went in and laid down, and when I woke up it was already
on the floor," he said. "I just started grabbing things and
putting them out in the boat. In about 10 minutes we were in
the boat."
He put on two shirts, a heavy jacket and boots, and took
two blankets. He thought to take food, not knowing how long
they might be in the boat. He took a container of milk and
some hotdogs, and some dog food for his two mutts, Sampson and
Bosco.
He spent the entire night in the rowboat with his dogs,
most of it leaning against the boat's trolling motor.
He was cold despite the blankets and jacket, he said, "I
slept maybe 15 minutes here and there. One dog sat on my lap
and the other one was under my legs, shivering like crazy."
The noise kept him awake as much as anything. "Everything
around here was creaking and cracking, even the trees," Shultz
said.
Objects floating against the inside of nearby buildings
kept banging against the walls, he said. "And when the docks
and the picnic table started floating by it was kind of
weird."
The electricity in the trailer park remained on through the
night, so there were some lights. He could see what the water
was doing. Shultz kept a radio playing music for company.
When the water dropped so it was not over his knees, about
10 a.m. Sunday, Shultz got out of the rowboat, and, like other
residents, began looking at the damage.
The experience wasn't as frightening as it was tiring, he
said. "It was kind of neat, but I wouldn't recommend it."
Edgewater Park owner Tom Szymanik said he and the other
residents were amazed that Shultz had ridden out the flood in
his rowboat.
Szymanik credited the crew of men, including Buster Bryan,
who didn't even live there, with saving 14 camper trailers by
towing them to higher ground.
Still, several trailers could not be saved and were swept
away. Some were completely submerged.
Amanda Newlun, 22, who lives with her family in one of the
park's four frame houses, said the flood ruined all the
furniture on the first floor.
Mike Stech, living in a camper trailer while he worked a
construction job at Pittsburgh Wheeling Steel, borrowed a
truck Saturday from a co-worker when he heard the water might
reach his camper.
He had almost gotten the camper out when the water got too
deep, he said. It had to be abandoned in several feet of
water, while he got the borrowed truck to the highest nearby
ground by a house. It still had a foot of water in the cab, he
said.
Residents gathered Monday to pull trailers out of the river
and clean out debris. About 6 p.m. Hancock County Commissioner
Jeff Davis and George Hines of the City of New Cumberland
pulled in with a pickup truck full of drinking water and
clean-up supplies.
|
