Hurricane Diane in 1955 dumped more than 10 inches of rain in eastern Pennsylvania, Aug. 18-19.
Diane came just days after Hurricane Connie on Aug. 12-13.
“Hurricanes Connie on Aug. 12-13 and Diane on Aug. 18-19 dealt Pennsylvania a flood disaster. More than a foot of rain from the combined storms fell on eastern Pennsylvania. Nearly 100 people died. Diane dumped more than 10 inches of rain in the Poconos on previously saturated ground, causing widespread, epic, flash flooding,” according to midatlantichurricanes.com.
Hurricane Diane was downgraded as it approached Pennsylvania. While the winds had diminished, the rain deluged the Commonwealth. The northeast part of the state was particularly hard hit with flooded roads that caused some communities to become isolated and stranding a train in the Poconos.
The flood tore out a bridge over the Delaware River that connected Easton and Phillipsburg, N.J. Twenty bridges were destroyed in Monroe County.
- MORE: Floods in Pennsylvania through the years.
The Patriot, Aug. 19, 1955
Once-powerful Diane, which started as a monster of hurricane winds, turned into a flood threat last night for the eastern section of Pennsylvania.
Crawling through the Commonwealth on a northward course at 15 mph, the blown-out low-pressure area deluged the state with rainstorms which flooded homes, closed main roads and literally isolated areas of the state from other communities.
The Harrisburg Weather Bureau placed the center of the storm “somewhere between Lancaster and Baltimore.”
- MORE: Eloise hammered Pennsylvania just three years after Agnes.
Streams, swollen by last week’s downpour as an aftermath of Hurricane Connie, were swirling over their hanks as the night progressed, wreaking all types of havoc.
A Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad passenger train headed from Hoboken to Scranton to Buffalo, was stranded in the Pocono Mountains at Paradise, west of Stroudsburg.
Railroad officials said the roadbed of the railroad was washed out and no attempt would be made to travel to Scranton. Instead, they said, attempts were being made to back the train to East Stroudsburg, 20 miles away.
State police in Northeastern Pennsylvania reported that every major road in the area was closed to their south. Route 309 was reported flooded between Philadelphia and Allentown.
Routes 6, 611, 307, 502 and 11 were reported under as much as four feet of water in the Luzerne and Lackawanna County areas and has received 10.25 inches of rain in the last 10 days.
The Federal-State Flood Forecasting Service said serious flooding was indicated for the Schuylkill River, Perkiomen Creek and Upper Lehigh River.
- MORE: Tropical Storm Agnes devastated Pennsylvania in 1972.
Also reported in The Patriot on Aug. 19:
One-time Hurricane Diane turned into a storm became a full-fledged flood-maker last night (Thursday) pouring wave after wave of water on Eastern Pennsylvania and causing millions of dollars in damage.
The blown-out tropical storm, shorn of its mighty winds, turned into rainmaker par excellence, flooding homes, covering main roads and isolating huge areas of the state from other communities.
- MORE: Vintage photos of the St. Patrick’s Day flood in Pa. in 1936.
It directly caused the death of at least six persons in the eastern half of a saturated commonwealth.
A dam at Hawley, a town of 1,500, burst, forcing evacuation of one-third the town’s residents for an expected flood of the Lackawanna River and Middle Creek.
Flood waters from the Schuylkill River and Little Wabash Creek swept through Tamaqua swirling over streets and into stores and cellars. Communication was cut off and the National Guard was stationed at crossroads and bridges. The community of 12,000 was almost completely isolated.
It stranded two passenger trains of the Delaware Lackawanna Railroad in the Pocono Mountains. It washed out bridges.
It cut loose an undetermined number of metal tanks from their moorings at an army installation at Philadelphia’s city line. The tanks contained explosive propane gas. Police barricade the area and were forbidden to transmit from their police car radios for fear of creating an explosion.
Near Hazleton, Waldron Fredericks, 60, of Conygham and Maurice Stangenberg, about 50, Sugarloaf Twp., were swept to their death in the overflowing Conygham Creek. They were trying to rescue three women caught in a car on a bridge crossing the creek on Conygham Twp. The women were rescued, and the men’s bodies were recovered by state police and borough rescue crews.
Eight to 10 landslides were reported on the Pennsylvania Railroad freight line between Wilkes-Barre and Sunbury. The two trains of the DL&W were stranded at Cresco and Tobyhanna, smack in the middle of the Pocono Mountains. The track roadbed was washed out. Railroad officials offered to move buses in to unload the passengers but the state police announced the main road, running from Scranton to New York was closed to high water.
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