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No Paul your wrong there buddy......570717 has told me who he is privately so yes I do know who he is and as far as Lus goes well she knows who she is and I know who I am.
I promised 570717 that I would not reveal who he is or who his family is and I have not....Although I do get on his case for it I have keep my part of the bargain.
I'm very glad you find it amusing that we get flooded, your sarcasm is appreciated as well. Until you know all the details of the lack of response on the part of the city in our time of need, I would appreciate that you refrain from making such ignorant comments regarding our flooding issuses.
Maybe next time we get flooded you can come help evacuate our parents & neighbors. You can also explain to our son why he has to live a his Grandmother until we can make sure it is safe for him to return. How about writing a check for a new waterheater, electrical panel, furnace, demolition, sheet rock, wiring, inspections of all work done & countless bottles of bleach (Flood Insurance dosen't cover it all ) or you can just volunteer to hose out the first floor, basement & garage of my home.
The only reason it has gotten to this point w/ the city is because of lack of everything on their part. We took the proper course to address this w/ the City & we've gotten nothing. Maybe if the City didn't make so many empty promises we wouldn't have gotten to this point. When we first approached City Council we did not go in on the defensive that is a result of years of frustration & shear panic everytime we get more then 2" of rain. Again, I'm glad you find it something to joke about & pray that if you ever do need anything in an emergency situation from the City you get the response that you as a taxpayer deserve.
No, Doherty is guilty of not doing much of anything to help the tax paying citizens of Scranton. I didn't like the sarcasm that was dripping from scrantonluna's post either. Those people who have to go through floods time and time again, because the city can't do simple things it's supposed to do, is sad. These people aren't asking for the world. They're just asking the city to do what is right and time and time again, the administration has done nothing. Shameful. We're not blaming Doherty for the floods, we're blaming him for his lack of action and help.
Well I'll add to what my wife said by at least telling you what wasn't done.
2004 Contractor leaves the riverbank cut down to water level without installing proper temporary flood walls like they are supposed to and the river rises and flows right in to our neighborhood.
One of my neighbors takes his own backhoe and tries to feel the void only to have the police and city tell him to get down and stop the work at one point there were guns drawn because they thought he was stealing the machine...It was his.
Also there was NO response from the city after the flood for anything, nothing!
There is a classaction lawsuit pending with 150 people as the plaintiffs from the 2004 flood.
2005 the repairs are not done and nothing was ever done to fix the damage to the riverbank.
2006 floods come and the riverbank is still damaged and lower then before and I have tried to get the city to fix this but nothing and at this point we are on pleasant terms with the city and there is no conflict, yet.
We flooded twice in two days and the second day put the water into the first floors of our homes and there is no response from the city and the SFD and the SPD are told not to enter the flood zone and they never did on duty, but off duty the guys were here to help.
The city again does nothing to help after the fact and the residents had to wait a week before FEMA finally came in, the city still never showed its face.
Catholic social services helped and the Red Cross, Fema and countless private citizens helped but not the city.
There is a flood meeting at he SHS on July 11.2006 almost two weeks after the flood and the Mayor falls asleep( I have it on video) he was jet lagged from returning from Italy....He wakes up and the mayor and director of public safety Ray Hayes promise us a flood siren and temporary flood protection until the ARmy Corps can get it done right...
Well after walking the riverbank with the DPW driector George Parker and marking all areas that have been damaged with paint so that they can be repaired nothing was done.
Our homes have been in the same spot for over a hundred years and we never recieved a drop of water EVER until 2004 so I don't want to hear about how we live in a flood zone because it was never a flood zone before not in the last hundred years.
In 2004 human error caused the flood but the damage that was done in 04' was never fixed and that allowed us to be flooded in 2006 so in reponse to your remarks.....
MAYOR DOHERTY IS SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR NOT HOLDING BACK THE FLOODWATERS.
You know it kills me when I have to watch the floods in the midwest, not because of the floods, but because the people come together with their cities and sandbag and do whatever they have to do just to help one house nevermind a whole city or neighborhood. Its sad, its very sad that our city cannot even rise to the occassion of helping its residents when they are in a time of need......
The whole city rallies to help out there but here we can't even get the city to show up for a flood and thats sad.
When you have walked in my soggy shoes then you can tell me what I can and cannot say or how I should act.
I have family in the plot, and it's funny, because the last time they got flooded, there were firefighters immediately pumping out basements, hosing down streets, DPW workers all over the place, etc. Electrical inspectors were there right behind them. To say there was no response from the city is a bold faced lie. I suppose that unless Doherty is personally shoveling mud out of your parlor you feel slighted. You can tell your tales, but I know what I saw.
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Maybe next time we get flooded you can come help evacuate our parents & neighbors. You can also explain to our son why he has to live a his Grandmother until we can make sure it is safe for him to return.
Better yet, why don't YOU explain to your son that you live in a FLOOD ZONE, and that until you move to another area, flooding is going to occur every few years.
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How about writing a check for a new waterheater, electrical panel, furnace, demolition, sheet rock, wiring, inspections of all work done & countless bottles of bleach (Flood Insurance dosen't cover it all ) or you can just volunteer to hose out the first floor, basement & garage of my home.
To be fair you can't blame Mayor Doherty for the ineptitude of upriver suburban communities who are permitting developers to ravage the vegetated open space that was once used to hold back water runoff in order to plop up their McMansions. The more watershed land that is built upon, and the more vegetation that is removed to make way for non-permeable surfaces, the more water there will be running off into the river, causing havoc for those downstream in low-lying areas like Dan's neighborhood. I'd place much more blame on neighboring municipalities for not doing anything in their capacity to stem runoff into their portion of the rivers than I would upon Mayor Doherty. I'm no fan of the man, but he's not to blame for everything that ails us (President Bush is the scapegoat for that one!)
I have family in the plot, and it's funny, because the last time they got flooded, there were firefighters immediately pumping out basements, hosing down streets, DPW workers all over the place, etc. Electrical inspectors were there right behind them. To say there was no response from the city is a bold faced lie. I suppose that unless Doherty is personally shoveling mud out of your parlor you feel slighted. You can tell your tales, but I know what I saw.
Better yet, why don't YOU explain to your son that you live in a FLOOD ZONE, and that until you move to another area, flooding is going to occur every few years.
Now you just sound like Genesis...
First lets start by saying that I do not live in THE PLOT, I live in Lower Greenridge and while they were helping the residents in the plot they were not helping us at all. Not one city offical at all and no inspectors for a week in 2006.
WE WERE NEVER FLOODED UNTIL 2004, NOT IN THE LAST CENTURY..................NO FLOODS UNTIL 2004 GET IT.....
ITS NOT THE PLOT!!!!!
Listen as far I am concerned the mayor knew the riverbank was damaged because I walked it with George Parker and we marked the damage to be repaired and they never did it and I asked about a 100 times to get it done and nothing. So as far as I am concerned it is the city's fault and since he is in charge its his fault for not doing ANYTHING TO PREVENT IT.
Why would I tell my son that we were going to get flooded every few years when WE HAD NEVER BEEN FLOODED BEFORE.........ITS NOT THE PLOT!!!!
GET IT.......ITS NOT THE PLOT!!!! NO FLOODS, NO RIVER OVER THE BANK, NO FLOODS...ITS NOT THE PLOT!!!!!
Now just in case you missed that I do not live in the plot.
Genesis huh well thats rich you sheepish little man you.......We don't live in a flood zone and thats funny because we were never required to have flood insurance and never did because in a hundred years we never had a drop of water in the basements, not one!!!!!!!
You think its funny that families have to spent their life savings to cover what wasn't covered by insurance or FEMA...
I'm not talking about me....How about the 100 other families that were affected by it.
You think its funny that some of them lost everything they had?
You thinks it funny that one of my neighbors still cannot afford to move back into her house, even though she is paying the mortgage?
You think that I'm down at those meetings for me? It has never been about me.
You are a very small man inside.....I feel sorry for you.
Oh, so this is one of the times when you WANT government spending, not like the other 50% of the time, when you complain about it. Besides, you have your answer, it's the Army Corp that has to fix the problem, and not the city.
Oh, and I hate to break it to you, but if you were flooded twice, I'd have to call that flood zone....
Dan, I'm sorry, but I've never agreed with you passing the buck on the flooding issue. The sole responsibility for the Lackawanna River corridor's levee system is in the lap of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, not the Electric City. Scrantonluna, Dan's neighborhood was not in a flood-prone area to my knowledge until these most recent issues within the past decade, which is why I do have sympathy for what he and his neighbors in Lower Green Ridge have to contend with seemingly once every other year. If Dan's neighborhood had routinely flooded once every couple of years for the multiple generations that his family has had his homestead, then I'd say "Cry me a river." However, disturbances of the watershed lands upstream since the 1990s have most definitely imperiled his neighborhood only in these more recent times.
Our own basement has flooded several times since 1998 when our next-door neighbor built his McMansion on the hill above us and disturbed the flow of water runoff, causing our property to become a catch basin of sorts. I know from spending hours upon hours pumping out our semi-finished basement of merely three or four inches of water about once every two years that Dan must have it ten times worse when the water is nearly up to his basement ceiling, destroying water heaters, furnaces, washers/dryers, carpeting, etc. I would NOT want to have to endure that so often, and I can understand his frustrations. However, you need to put the blame where it belongs. Mayor Doherty has NOTHING TO DO with the flooding of Lower Green Ridge, just like it's asinine to blame 9/11 on President Bush when he had no known definite prior knowledge of the impending attacks. Dan, believe it or not it's not always the fault of the nerdy-looking man who lives in the brick mansion on North Washington Avenue. Sometimes you should shake your fists at Mother Nature.
I simply don't understand some of those in the Legion of Doom. Bill Jackowitz is especially famous for quoting monthly unemployment rates for the ENTIRE METROPOLITAN AREA, contrasting them against the state and national unemployment rates, which are often much, much lower, and then blaming Mayor Doherty for that. Why? Pittston Township has thousands of acres of land currently being developed for commercial and industrial purposes---all of which will be low-wage jobs at distribution centers. Can't he shake the finger at US too for not wishing to attract quality CAREER OPPORTUNITIES (not "jobs") at companies you could say you'd be proud to work for? Why is it all Mayor Doherty's fault that the 551,000 people in the metroplex are unemployed or underemployed? Then you also have Fay "foaming at the mouth" Franus and her classic kvetching about stop signs/street signs in Bellevue along STATE ROADWAYS. Why doesn't she understand that at best all the city can do is draft a letter on behalf of council to PennDOT informing them of the citizens' requests and asking them to investigate the matter further. If PennDOT says "not necessary," then city council can't just say "*********" and throw up road signs anyways just to make Fay happy. Don't even get me started on Les "pause in between sentences to let people giggle at me" Spindler either. I'm sure these are all nice, hard-working people, but why don't they understand after months and years of bickering that more often than not many of their complaints are being directed at the WRONG GOVERNING BODY? Would you go to Lowe's and complain about the poor quality of lingerie you bought at Wal-Mart? Would you go to Brixx and complain about the bad tacos you ate at Taco Bell? The same goes for going to council meetings and wasting everyone's time kvetching about things that are the responsibility of the state (signs along state roadways), county, Federal government (river flooding), Chamber of Commerce (high local unemployment/poverty), Sierra Club (urban sprawl), etc. Do people honestly think Janet Evans is Wonder Woman? (Cruella DeVil perhaps, but I digress).
Actually the sole responsiblity of the maintenance of the current riverbank did not and does become the Army Corps until a contract is bid and accepted on that land. Until that moment the responsiblity is the local municipality's.
The Army Corp just recently this year in the beginning of the summer accepted the subservice work contract and work began. NOW that stretch is the Army Corps problem and responsibility.
That means that our neighborhood and the maintenance of the riverbank up to and including the beginning of 2008 was the city of Scrantons.
Lets try this one more time........It was never a flood zone....
The first flood in 2004 was due to HUMAN ERROR because they left a GAPPING HOLE in the riverbank while doing work without proper cofferdams in place.......
That flood and the subsequent water BEHIND AND FLOWING THRU THE GAPPING HOLE eroded the existing riverbank by close to 4 ft in width in sections and lowered half of it by close to 2ft.
It was never repaired in 2004 while IT WAS THE CITY OF SCRANTON'S RESPONSIBLITY to repair and maintain it. It was 2ft lower in 2006 when the rains came and guess what? Guess where the water went? Not in the hole, the contractor fixed that(HENCE THE CLASSACTION LAWSUIT).....It went right over the sections of the levee that the city told us that they would repair and raise and they never did.
IF THOSE REPAIRS WERE DONE we would not have been flooded in the summer of 2006....
Those are the only two floods that we have had and they both happened because of HUMAN ERROR AND LACK OF REPAIRS AND MAINTENANCE.
Oh and by the way.....After the Army Corps is finished with its construction of the levees and moves on, the responsiblity of the NEW LEVEE is turned back over to the local municipality to maintain in the same manner and fashion that it recieved the levee system in from the Army Corps.
Basically the Army Corps builds it and we have to take care of it. So don't try to lay this off on the Army Corps.
Paul don't you think that I pretty much have done the research on the flooding down here? Don't you think if it was anyone else that I would be going after them just as hard? We stood there and listened to the mayor and Ray Hayes in the high school PROMISE US that they would do the repairs and install a flood siren. I wasn't involved in going to council or any of this until those promises were made and not kept.
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