Gowanda garden springs back to life
Lush landscape bears few reminders of flood
Barbara Nephew vowed that her sprawling garden would be exhumed from the muck and debris that smothered it when floodwaters ravaged Gowanda three months ago.
Nephew proved true to her word. Her garden is recovering, and so are Gowanda and nearby communities, where the federal government so far has pumped in $6.7 million dollars in disaster aid.
But like the deadlines Nephew had to meet to restore her garden for a shortened growing season, the final deadline for applying for grants and low-interest loans draws near.
The deadline, in fact, arrives Tuesday, and federal and state officials want more residents and business owners affected by the torrential rains to apply for the assistance.
'Not registering is like throwing money away,' said FEMA coordinating officer Jaimecq E. Forero. 'While not everyone who registers is guaranteed assistance, you'll never know unless you do so.'
To date, $4.3 million in federal grants for housing and disaster related needs has been distributed, along with $2.4 million in Small Business Administration low-interest loans to homeowners,cq renters and businesses of all sizes in the affected areas of Cattaraugus, Chautauqua and Erie counties.
Information on the financial help can be obtained at two outreach centers: Gowanda Fire Hall, 230 Aldrich St., and Mount Carmel School, 165 Central Ave., Silver Creek, or by calling (800) 621-3362.
The biggest grants available to residents top $30,000, but many have received much smaller grants, according to Nephew, who lost $10,000 in possessions to the floodwaters and was awarded $199 from FEMA.
She is not bitter.
'The material things you can always replace, but losing my garden, that was tough. The garden represented 20 years of work,' she said, recalling how over past springs and summers she would work outdoors well past sunset — to the point that one year for Mother's Day her family purchased her a miner's hat complete with a light.
After consulting a landscape designer, Nephew said she took a philosophical approach on the restoration of her three-quarter-acre garden on Aldrich Street.
'He said "Look at it this way. You're starting over with a clean slate. Look at the areas that were a lot of work and downsize. Keep the things you like best,'‚' Nephew recalled of Bill Hickok's advice.
After a six-inch coating of silt and debris that included everything from bicycles to beer cans was scraped from the remnants of her lawn and placed in two dump trucks, Nephew and an army of volunteers began the delicate work of clearing by hand the mud choking the flower beds.
Without air, she said, the hostas, euonymus and other ground coverings would have died. At the same time, she realized she had to get a new lawn planted.
'I knew I had to get the grass in by the first week of September,' she said lastearlier this week as she strolled the foot paths of her new lush lawn. 'The grass is actually better. I had this really invasive weed, creeping Charlie, and now there's none of it.'
What amazes her the most is not how her garden is making a comeback, but how so many people came together to help one another. She says she will never forget the volunteers of Hillcrest Church in Jamestown, the students from St. Bonaventure University and the workers from Macy's department store who provided so much elbow grease.
Her observations are echoed just about everywhere in Gowanda and the other areas hit by the Aug. 8-9 floods that inundated homes, washed out roads and turned Lake Erie beaches into dumping grounds for washed-up debris.
Cynthia Dishman, who was president of the Gowanda Free Library when the flood hit, said the library managed to reopen in a week.
'Everybody just pitched in, and that really touched me,' said Dishman, who works a couple doors away from the library as a dental hygienist for Dr. Robert Dowrey on West Main Street. 'We have incredible people in this community who will do anything to help their neighbors.'
But there's no question, a lot was lost to the floods.
Dowrey said his dental office sustained $60,000 damage and was closed for two months before it was fixed up enough to open. As a reminder, he keeps a photo album of the flood that inundated his office on the counter. The photographic journal is simply labeled, 'Gowanda Flooding.'
Gowanda's 13-million gallon drinking water reservoir is not expected to be in working order until next summer. Until then, springs and wells provide water. And a decision on whether to reopen the village's Tri-County Hospital remains under review.
Yet it is hard to be bitter.
Howard Parish, who is retired but works part-time at the local Harley-Davidson motorcycle store, says he too will never forget the outpouring of love.
'It made my heart glad to live in Gowanda,' he said of all the volunteers.
Work to restore the village continues.
Construction crews are widening sections of Thatcher Brook to allow water to flow properly. Carpenters are replacing buildings destroyed in the flood and groups of inmates from nearby state prisons are sweeping the sides of roads to clear away the dirt and dust.
What about the possibility of another flood?
'It's going to happen, but we'll never have another one to this extent — seven inches of rain with five of those inches in one hour,' said Dishman, in expressing guarded optimism.
Nephew says future flooding is a worry, though she chooses to look on the bright side.
'When you live in a flood plain, it's always a concern. But the upside is the soil is beautiful,' she said as she pushed a spade into the rich earth of her garden. 'It's so deep and there's not a stone in it.'
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