A Teacher Questions Reservoir's Ties to Floods
March 14, 2008
2008 Flood watch
By Diane Mastrull
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Diane Tharp's crusade for year-round voids in the New York reservoirs used to be a lonely one.
After a five-inch rain in September 2004, the Delaware swamped the first-floor workroom of her home 75 yards inland, near Stroudsburg.

"I approached politicians about the relationship between the flood crest [over 21 feet] and the 100-percent-full reservoirs," she said recently, "but no one would listen."

Tharp kept pushing, motivated by two more floods in the next two years. In each, the river crested at 34 feet, reaching her second floor and soaking the living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and office.

Tharp puts her total damage at about $100,000. And she puts part of the blame for her husband's heart attack last year on flood-related stress.

"Finally, after three floods, people were not only listening to what I had to say, but were asking for the information," Tharp said.

The Poconos-area elementary school teacher has provided packages of her research to state lawmakers, members of Congress, and Gov. Rendell. She has spoken before Pennsylvania's State Republican Policy Committee and the Delaware River Basin Commission.

"I no longer feel like that lone voice that no one would listen to," she said.

But until she has won her case for permanent voids in New York's reservoirs, her flood routine remains in effect. It includes moving furniture to the roof and using a rope to scale the hill out back.