WEST PITTSTON -- One year ago the only way around parts of West Pittston was by raft. The Susquehanna River reached levels many people said they’ve never seen before in that part of Luzerne County.
A year later and it’s hard to find any signs of the flood on Linden Street.
Sandra Grove and her son Trent moved back into their home just before Christmas. She had managed to save much of her furniture.
"We left. We had to leave. We were watching the river rise and we came back everything was covered with mud, 22 inches on the first floor. I had white carpet here. It was gray. It stunk," said Sandra.
Trent is the captain of the Wyoming Area High School football team and says his teammates came together and helped clean up the mess left behind.
"Walking in and three days earlier here it was, my house, and now I’m walking in there’s water and it smelled. Everything I had for the last 17 years of my life it was ruined. It was crazy," said Trent.
If you drove through this neighborhood in the weeks and months following the flood you probably noticed all the different vans from the contractors. Some said the destruction they saw was unlike any destruction they ever saw before.
"Never seen anything like that before. Being from Long Island we don’t get too many floods. We get hurricanes once in a blue moon maybe every ten years, the destruction, the place was a wreck," said Dennis Lucas, a contractor.
"When the weather is like this today it reminds us of cleaning up. We were so focused on the clean-up and so focused as a family. I think we got stronger as a family," added Sandra Grove.
But for some flood victims, the struggles aren’t over. They may not have complied with federal regulations while repairing the flood damage. Their options now are to either make the proper repairs by December 1st or take their case to court.