Flooding Cleanup Underway After Water Starts Receding In Central Pennsylvania
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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Hersheypark and Knoebels have reopened Friday, after heavy rains and intense flooding forced the popular family attractions to shut down for several days this week.
Mother Nature finally gave Central Pennsylvania a break Thursday, after five straight days of rainfall wreaked havoc on the region.
Though the rain stopped, Priscilla Stoner of Palmyra, Lebanon County woke up to find a massive sinkhole in her backyard.
"It's very concerning," she said. "We're in a neighborhood where it's just happening and you never know when you're gonna wake up and have this in your backyard."
Just down the road at Hersheypark, stunning drone images taken earlier this week show rides flooded by brown water. The park is planning to reopen today, after the wild weather shut it down for three days this week. The same goes for Knoebels Amusement Resort in Columbia County, where it's been all hands on deck to open to guests today.
"We have grounds teams who are about putting the stone, all the gravel back together," said Brian Knoebel, Knoebel's owner and manager. "We have two ride teams who are checking on the rides."
In other areas, like Schuykill County, total cleanup and rebuilding efforts will take some time.
"We have a lot of work to do, and a lot of things to find out, so we're all here to do the best we can," said Gov. Tom Wolf, as he toured the damage in hard-hit Tremont and Pine Grove Thursday.
"Everybody is concerned about what happened here," he said. "This area, Central Pennsylvania, seriously, especially got hammered with a lot of rain. So we want to show solidarity with these Pennsylvanians, our fellow citizens who got hurt and also find out what we can do to help."
Central Pennsylvania isn't out of the woods just yet. Scattered thunderstorms are in the forecast on and off for the next two weeks and are expected to dump even more rain over the region.
