WILKES-BARRE, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — It’s hard to believe that 50 years ago a storm hit the Wilkes-Barre area changing lives and the landscape forever.
On Monday night, Eyewitness News will spend an hour, remembering tropical storm Agnes. The storm that ravaged the region in June of 1972.
The video in many of the stories you will see has been digitally remastered and hasn’t been seen since 1972. The 16-millimeter film was in the Eyewitness News basement for years and was recently re-discovered, digitized, and enhanced for our special.
Viewers will recognize it by a visible watermark in the upper right corner of your screen. Eyewitness News brings you the sights and sounds of the Agnes flood of ’72, digitally remastered.
The worst flooding of the Susquehanna River unleashed in the 20th century, was brought into greater focus with 21st-century technology.
Seen for the first time in 50 years, washed-out bridges and sections of the levee system. Also unearthed, is footage of Luzerne County Civil Defense Director General Frank Townend taking stock of the flood threat on the eve of destruction, before ordering the Wyoming Valley to evacuate.
Although time has moved forward and residents and their land recovered, the area will never forget the flood of 1972, this is ‘Agnes at 50.’
