Binghamton is home for all of us. We all knock it, but in deciding to attend Binghamton University we each signed our lease on this city and made it our own. It is our responsibility to have a broad understanding of what exactly happened to our city in wake of last week’s flood.
If you haven’t yet toured around the flooded Triple Cities, or as much of it that remains accessible, you should. The recent lifting of the travel ban in Binghamton should be getting you out of your seats, into your cars and on a whirlwind tour of our damaged city.
Underclassmen, you have the most important responsibility. You are the ones who will have to recount the stories to the future students once we have all graduated. Most of you do not live off campus, and you’ll need to educate yourself well enough to tell tales of the crippling flood, and how our city had the resolve to will itself through it.
Here are some anecdotes that should help you hit the ground running:
A friend of mine lived on the first floor of a two-floor duplex apartment on Conklin Avenue. She, like thousands of other Broome County citizens, had to evacuate her home which lay on the banks of the Susquehanna River.
She came to learn in the next few days that her apartment had flooded and would be uninhabitable. Throughout the ordeal, she spent countless hours answering calls in the Events Center, often starting work in the wee, dark hours of the morning. Despite her own home’s destruction, she worked tirelessly to make sure sure others were safe and their uncertainty and questions were put to rest.
I myself visited the Events Center, which was a sobering, if not enlightening experience. After talking to displaced citizens, student volunteers and shelter coordinators, I got a wide array of different accounts from those who lost their homes and livelihoods, to those who hadn’t seen a drop of water seep into their places of living.
Some evacuees remained hopeful and in good spirits, simply waiting for the word to able to go back home to their houses. Many were in much more dire straits. But most seemed excited and grateful when performance groups such as the Harpur Jazz Ensemble and my a cappella group, The Crosbys, came to lighten the mood and raise spirits.
And then something hit me much more subtly. While driving up Front Street in Binghamton the other day, trying to spot places that were still flooded, I stopped at the Red Oak Diner. An unimpressive place by most standards, but a solid hangover cure that my friends and I sometimes frequented. I drove up to the restaurant, parked in the half-submerged lot and watched as people who I assumed were proprietors of the place walked in and out with supplies and sullen looks on their faces.
The diner was one of many businesses swept away by the floodwater, but this one hit closer to home. The Red Oak was a gem, synonymous with memories of story swapping from the previous night’s outrageous party, and now could remain defunct for an unknown period of time. I’d bet there’s a place around town you hold special, and I’d place a higher bet that it was affected in some way by the flood.
Get your stories and share them. This is our home and it deserves our attention.