The hurricane isolated communities and brought death and destruction to Pennsylvania.
In 1955, Hurricane Diane brought unprecedented flooding to Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley region. The hurricane hit on August 18th, just days after Hurricane Connie brought heavy rains between August 12th and 13th.
Between the two storms, data shows more than a foot of rain fell on eastern Pennsylvania. Nearly 100 people were killed.
Although the storm was downgraded as it approached the state, heavy rain caused flash flooding that caused some communities to become isolated and inaccessible.
Twenty bridges in Monroe County were destroyed by Hurricane Diane. A bridge over the Delaware River that connected Pennsylvania to New Jersey was also wiped out.
Homes were flooded, roads were closed, and railroads were impacted. One train was stranded in the Pocono Mountains due to flooding.
“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,” said an excerpt from The Patriot published on August 19th, 1955.
“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,” it continued.
A dam at the town of Hawley burst, causing the evacuation of some of the town’s 1,500 residents.
The National Guard was stationed at crossroads and bridges during the unprecedented flooding that wiped out transportation infrastructure across the state.
Dangerous landslides were reported on the Pennsylvania Railroad freight line between Wilkes-Barre and Sunbury.
At Camp Davis on the Broadhead Creek, a few miles north of East Stroudsburg, mothers and children were being hosted for a religious camp for five weeks. As the flood waters rose, 40 of them were trapped in the attic of a building to escape the rising water. The building collapsed, and only nine of the 40 women and children survived
The hurricane caused millions of dollars in damage across the Commonwealth. It took months for the heavily affected Lehigh Valley region to recover from the flooding that occurred 70 years ago during Hurricane Diane.
In the eastern part of the state, 91 people were killed. In Monroe County alone, 70 people were killed during the hurricane.
