ALMOST GONE: The Yardley-Wilburtha Bridge, still spanning the Delaware River in this shot, was among the casualties of the deadly flood of 1955. Mary Shafer, author of a book on the subject, delivers a talk about the epic event on June 26. (Photo from the Trentoniana Collection)

By Anne Levin

Communities close to the Delaware River have seen their share of dangerous tropical storms and hurricanes in recent years — think Sandy, Irene, and Katrina. But none rival the devastation of August 1955, when the double whammy of Hurricanes Connie and Diane struck the area within a week of one another.

The Delaware River watershed’s most catastrophic natural disaster is the topic of an online presentation by Mary Shafer, author of the book Devastation on the Delaware: Stories and Images of the Deadly Flood of 1955, on Thursday, June 26 at 7:30 p.m. A 45-minute slide show accompanies Shafer’s talk, which is sponsored by the Delaware River Greenway Partnership. Visit shorturl.at/7416V to register for the free event.

A Pennsylvania native, Shafer is a self-described “weather weenie” who only learned about the storm when she happened upon a book on the subject at a rummage sale.

“I thought it was weird, because I had been coming to Bucks County for 15 years to visit my cousin, and I had never even heard of this event,” she said. “I was freelancing for the New Hope Gazette at the time, and I asked about it. I was told it was a very regional event and it didn’t get a lot of coverage.”

Shafer’s interest eventually led to a book of her own. She had done three years of researching and writing when Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005. The devastating storm and its aftermath inspired her to get it completed.

“As sad as it was, Katrina was kind of a silver lining to the deal,” she said. “Flooding was at the front of everyone’s mind. I wrote up a release, and all of a sudden my phone started ringing off the hook, and it didn’t stop till more than a year later — more like two.”

Shafer did a lot of public speaking over the next five years. Devastation on the Delaware sold more than 15,000 copies. “For a debut indie book, that was amazing,” she said.

Ninety-nine people in the Delaware Valley died during the storms between August 18 and 20. Others were left for dead or missing. Trenton was particularly hard hit. So were Morrisville, Yardley, and other Pennsylvania towns along the river. Even worse damage was recorded in the Carolinas and the Poconos.

The two storms did kind of a “do-si-do,” Shafer said. “When you have two close hurricanes, they will pull at each other. That’s what happened. Connie broke away and headed inland. That was okay until Diane followed. In the Poconos, there were up to 10 inches of water. Three different people I talked to described solid curtains of water, unlike anything they had ever experienced.”

The book, which is written like a thriller, describes frantic efforts at three summer camps, on islands in the Delaware, to get campers out by helicopter before they were washed away. In Trenton, the whole riverfront — about three blocks — was entirely under water, closing the New Jersey State House and capital buildings. Yardley, Pa. lost the bridge that linked it to Wilburtha Road in Ewing.

More than once during the past decade, Shafer heard a story about a young man who braved the rushing waters in Yardley to rescue a dog that was stuck on debris headed for the Yardley-Wilburtha bridge. But she was never able to find the man, so she couldn’t corroborate the story and include it in the book.

At a talk she gave at the Yardley Historical Society, she was finally able to meet him. He was 98 years old.

“I had looked for him for three years,” she said. “I hadn’t been able to put the story in the book, and now I could [in the third edition]. It was the best moment of my career. This book changed my life.”