When Two Hurricanes Devastated the Delaware Valley: The Catastrophic Floods of August 1955

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, this is meteorologist Steve Pelletier
and I am the weatherman.
August 2025 marks the 70thanniversary of the historic
flooding along the DelawareRiver in New Jersey and
Pennsylvania.
Back in 1955.
The Delaware River rose to alevel never before seen after
Hurricane Connie and HurricaneDiane drenched the region with
record rainfall.

(00:20):
Just days apart, bothPhillipsburg, new Jersey, and
eastern Pennsylvania, locatedjust across from each other on
the Delaware River, were theepicenter of the flooding.
First, it was Hurricane Conniemaking landfill over the outer
banks of North Carolina as aCategory 2 hurricane, before
moving into the Chesapeake Bayarea and then to Pennsylvania.

(00:40):
About five inches of rain fellin New Jersey and 180,000 homes
lost power.
Locally, manville, new Jersey,declared a state of emergency
from a river flooding.
Just five days later, on August17, 1955, hurricane Diane made
landfall a little further south,in Wilmington, north Carolina,
and then turned northeast, wherethe warm Atlantic waters helped

(01:02):
to produce record rainfallacross the region, with some
areas receiving as much as 10 to15 inches over just 48 hours.
10 to 15 inches of rain just 48hours Across the Delaware River
basin.
Rivers and streams alreadyswollen by Connie's rainfall
earlier had nowhere to send theexcess water.
The cumulative rainfalloverwhelmed the Delaware River,

(01:24):
particularly the Lehigh Riverwhich meets the Delaware in
eastern PA.
Now, by August 20th, theDelaware had risen well above
the 22-foot flood stage,reaching a crest of 44.4 feet at
eastern Pennsylvania, thehighest ever recorded.
Easton found itself surroundedby water.
Low-lying neighborhoods wereinundated by the muddy,

(01:46):
fast-moving currents.
A similar situation existedacross the river in Phillipsburg
, new Jersey, where the SouthMain Street area close to the
riverbank was submergedcompletely.
Homes and businesses in bothplaces were damaged or destroyed
.
Some roads washed away and thedebris filled the flooded
streets At the height of theflooding.
Parts of both communities wereonly accessible by boat.

(02:09):
Further north upstream, thePortland-Columbia Pedestrian
Bridge, built in 1831 andreportedly the oldest wooden
covered bridge in the US at thattime, was destroyed, was
destroyed and the bridge debristraveled down the river before
getting lodged in the easternPhillipsburg Free Bridge,
ultimately collapsing a 100-footcenter as an intersection of

(02:30):
that bridge right into the river.
In all, four of the 12 bridgesthat span the Delaware River,
from the Water Gap to Trenton,collapsed because of the water.
Elsewhere, flooding sparkeddramatic rescues as thousands of
residents and summer visitorsto the area and nearby Poconos
tried to get out of the way ofthe raging water.
There was a reported OperationKid Lift, where military

(02:54):
helicopters airlifted hundredsof summer camps from islands to
the rivers of the Poconos.
One newspaper indicated thatsouth of Frenchtown 14
helicopters evacuated 600 BoyScouts and Girl Scouts and
Campfire Girls from threeislands.
In Trenton, the basement of theStatehouse building was flooded

(03:14):
Across the Delaware River Basin.
More than 100 people lost theirlives and in a sad parallel to
the recent flooding in the illcountry of Texas, 37 campers,
including 15 children, were lostwhen a wall of water demolished
a small retreat, camp Davis, inthe Poconos, southwest of
Stroudsburg, pa.
Right after the flooding, newJersey officials were so

(03:34):
concerned about disease that thestate ordered more than 6,000
typhoid shots to be given toarea residents within the week.
The 1955 flood was a wake-upcall to the area.
Officials from the local, stateand federal levels re-evaluated
flood preparedness and rivermanagement.
The Delaware River BasinCommission, the DBDRBC, was

(03:56):
formed in 1961 as a cooperativeeffort among states and the
federal government with theintent to bring the Delaware
River under collective andbalanced control, to ensure that
fair usage by the states and tobe concerned about water
quality conservation and floodmitigation and the losses of the
recreation activities fromthose flooding Zoning logs in

(04:20):
flood-prone areas were revisedand both Phillipsburg, new
Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvaniadeveloped emergency flood
protocols and improved stormdrainage.
But despite the changes overthe years, the Delaware River
will still flood.
For example, in a rain-snowmelt event in April 2005, the
river crested at 37.2 feet inEaston.

(04:41):
That was the highest since 1955.
This report was prepared by JeffMorrison, who has always been
interested in weather since hewas a small kid.
He has been collecting NewJersey weather data for 50 years
and has been providing thelocal observations to us here at
ION Weather since 1979.
Now Jeff has been a longtimemember of the North Jersey
Weather Observers, along withbeing a local Coqueras Community

(05:04):
Collaborative Rain and Hail andSnow Network Observer in
Somerset County, new Jersey.
He provides valuableprecipitation data to this
nationwide network.
Jeff has a full weather stationin his home and enjoys writing
articles on a variety of weathertopics for the general audience
.
So thanks to Jeff for this veryinformative report about the
70-year anniversary of thefloods of 1955 on the Delaware

(05:29):
River.