TUNKHANNOCK -- Members of one area volunteer fire company in Wyoming County did not let Mother Nature get the better of them.
Several tents at the Triton Hose Company`s carnival grounds were badly damaged in last Thursday`s violent storm, but after a lot of hard work, the show still opened Tuesday night as scheduled.
It was a summer evening and once again folks were gathering at their local volunteer fire company`s annual carnival.
In Tunkhannock Tuesday night, the event was put on by the Triton Hose Company.
“Oh, it`s wonderful,” said Joyce Klinges of Tunhannock. “Yeah, when I come here sometimes I don`t see my friends from one year to the next. It’s like a reunion.”
Of course there`s plenty of rides and entertainment, but the real fun is the food.
“Fries, potato pancakes, which are excellent,” said David Ostrowski from Shavertown. “I’m getting clams next.”
But just days ago there were fears the carnival wouldn`t go on.
The tents were set up in advance of Tuesday`s start date last week.
On Thursday many stands fell victim to the severe storms that came through part of our area.
Sherri Kukuchka`s husband is a firefighter here and she says it was tough to see all the hard work wiped out.
“The entire week before, they were setting up tents so it definitely made an impact as far as to see that work go to waste, but they just picked up and said 'okay, we’ve got to get it together,'” said Kukuchka.
This is the biggest fundraiser for the Triton Hose Company so other fire companies did what they do best. They came rushing to try to rescue the event by offering to donate tents.
However, after assessing the damage, members of the Triton Hose Company said they were able to readjust using the tents they had and a lot of hard work.
“It looked worse than it really is but once you start digging through it, we found out it wasn`t as bad. It took out our big pizza tent so we had to improvise another one there. We put three of them together and got two out of it. We pulled the reserve tent out of the closet, so we had everything back up,” said carnival chairman Dave Winski. “Guys came out and worked awfully hard that evening and the next morning at 6:30 they were here cleaning up and putting everything back together.”
Some people said that immediate response by other fire companies offer support shows how much these volunteers look out for one another.
“It`s sort of like a family,” said Dotie Ostrowski. “They help each other. I think all the volunteer fire companies do that sort of thing.”
The Triton Hose Company’s carnival runs through Saturday in Tunkhannock.