AUGUST 14, 2005 --

At Camp Wabigoon (boys) and Camp Wahanda (girls), Friday August 12 was the day before the season's "big show" -- "The King and I," that summer.

And both camps were also anticipating the start of "Color War" -- the three days of athletic events that culminated the camp season -- the camps split into two teams. (At Wabigoon, that year, the teams were the Green Pagans and the White Olympians, and the Olympians won the boys' color war by a wide margin.)

There was considerable rain the days before the August 13-14 weekend, in 1955 -- the effects of Hurricane Connie. But the rain stopped the day of the Big Show
and skies remained clear for the three days of color war at Wabigoon and Wahanda.

The rain resumed, however, the evening of August 17, continued through August 18, and with skies again clear, as this writer recalls, Friday August 19, we heard on national news radio programs that morning that Winsted was in the news,
mentioned as having suffered terrible damage, along with other Connecticut towns, from a flood caused by Hurricane Diane.

(Years later, someone told this writer that an Air Force pilot who flew over the Connecticut flood damage said that
it look like a great hand had come from the sky and scooped troughs in the Naugatuck Valley.)

Winsted will memorialize the seven victims of the Flood of 1955 on Sunday, August 21. The Winsted Journal is running a four part series on the flood,
including photos of the damage caused by the Mad River, which usually was a trickle running along and below the south side of Main Street on which, until Friday August 19, 1955 stood buildings facing the structures across the two lane thoroughfare.

The photos that appear here were taken August 12, 2005. As readers will see, there no longer are buildings on the south bank of Main Street, The
buildings that stood on the north side of Main Street, heavily damaged by the flood, still stand, a tribute to the indomitable spirit of this small city in
northwestern Connecticut.

The flood happened 50 years ago. In 1955, 50 years past would have seemed so far away -- 1905. This writer feels the impact of the Great Flood of 1955 no less
today than when, with other campers, he walked down Spencer Road, from Camp Wabigoon, and stood in the rubble that Main Street had become alolng the block
from Elm Street.

In the brown building on Main, near the corner of Elm, was the United Cigar Store and the propertor, Maney Leshay was one of the seven people in Winsted killed, August 19, when his car was taken by
the floodwaters as he tried to drive to his shop that morning.

May the valiant Winsted long endure--together with that of the other towns of Conneccticut, Pennsylvania and New York that were struck August 1955 by Hurricane Diane.

Winsted's Memorial to the victims of the Flood of 1955.