Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi, this is meteorologist Steve Pelletier and I am the weatherman. August 2025 marks the 70th anniversary of the historic flooding along the Delaware River in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Back in 1955. The Delaware River rose to a level never before seen after Hurricane Connie and Hurricane Diane drenched the region with record rainfall. Just days apart, both Phillipsburg, new Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania, located just across from each other on the Delaware River, were the epicenter of the flooding. First, it was Hurricane Connie making landfill over the outer banks of North Carolina as a Category 2 hurricane, before moving into the Chesapeake Bay area and then to Pennsylvania. About five inches of rain fell in 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 August 17, 1955, hurricane Diane made landfall a little further south, in Wilmington, north Carolina, and then turned northeast, where the warm Atlantic waters helped to produce record rainfall across the region, with some areas receiving as much as 10 to 15 inches over just 48 hours. 10 to 15 inches of rain just 48 hours Across the Delaware River basin. Rivers and streams already swollen by Connie's rainfall earlier had nowhere to send the excess water. The cumulative rainfall overwhelmed the Delaware River, particularly the Lehigh River which meets the Delaware in eastern PA. Now, by August 20th, the Delaware had risen well above the 22-foot flood stage, reaching a crest of 44.4 feet at eastern Pennsylvania, the highest ever recorded.

Speaker 1: 1:41

Easton found itself surrounded by water. Low-lying neighborhoods were inundated by the muddy, fast-moving currents. A similar situation existed across the river in Phillipsburg, new Jersey, where the South Main Street area close to the riverbank was submerged completely. Homes and businesses in both places were damaged or destroyed. Some roads washed away and the debris filled the flooded streets At the height of the flooding. Parts of both communities were only accessible by boat. Further north upstream, the Portland-Columbia Pedestrian Bridge, built in 1831 and reportedly the oldest wooden covered bridge in the US at that time, was destroyed, was destroyed and the bridge debris traveled down the river before getting lodged in the eastern Phillipsburg Free Bridge, ultimately collapsing a 100-foot center as an intersection of that bridge right into the river. In all, four of the 12 bridges that span the Delaware River, from the Water Gap to Trenton, collapsed because of the water.

Speaker 1: 2:40

Elsewhere, flooding sparked dramatic rescues as thousands of residents and summer visitors to the area and nearby Poconos tried to get out of the way of the raging water. There was a reported Operation Kid Lift, where military helicopters airlifted hundreds of summer camps from islands to the rivers of the Poconos. One newspaper indicated that south of Frenchtown 14 helicopters evacuated 600 Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and Campfire Girls from three islands. In Trenton, the basement of the Statehouse building was flooded Across the Delaware River Basin. More than 100 people lost their lives and in a sad parallel to the recent flooding in the ill country of Texas, 37 campers, including 15 children, were lost when a wall of water demolished a small retreat, camp Davis, in the Poconos, southwest of Stroudsburg, pa. Right after the flooding, new Jersey officials were so concerned about disease that the state ordered more than 6,000 typhoid shots to be given to area residents within the week.

Speaker 1: 3:42

The 1955 flood was a wake-up call to the area. Officials from the local, state and federal levels re-evaluated flood preparedness and river management. The Delaware River Basin Commission, the DBDRBC, was formed in 1961 as a cooperative effort among states and the federal government with the intent to bring the Delaware River under collective and balanced control, to ensure that fair usage by the states and to be concerned about water quality conservation and flood mitigation and the losses of the recreation activities from those flooding Zoning logs in flood-prone areas were revised and both Phillipsburg, new Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania developed emergency flood protocols and improved storm drainage. But despite the changes over the years, the Delaware River will still flood. For example, in a rain-snow melt event in April 2005, the river crested at 37.2 feet in Easton. That was the highest since 1955.

Speaker 1: 4:45

This report was prepared by Jeff Morrison, who has always been interested in weather since he was a small kid. He has been collecting New Jersey weather data for 50 years and has been providing the local observations to us here at ION Weather since 1979. Now Jeff has been a longtime member of the North Jersey Weather Observers, along with being a local Coqueras Community Collaborative Rain and Hail and Snow Network Observer in Somerset County, new Jersey. He provides valuable precipitation data to this nationwide network. Jeff has a full weather station in his home and enjoys writing articles on a variety of weather topics for the general audience. So thanks to Jeff for this very informative report about the 70-year anniversary of the floods of 1955 on the Delaware River.