Yellow Creek Ice Gorge Imperils Several Families

From the Front Page of the Feb. 19, 1948, edition of the Herald

One of the worst ice jams in recent memory of residents damaged several properties and endangered the lives of residents of Yellow Creek Saturday morning.

Heavy rains and melting snow on Friday throughout the area drained by Yellow Creek, including the southern sections of the Cove, caused a sudden rise in the creek.

Early Saturday morning the wails of two dogs tied in the yard of the Frank B. Cronemiller home awakened the family. A son, John W. rescued the dogs and found a foot of water, carrying huge chunks of ice, flowing through the yard.

Mrs. Cronemiller warned all neighbors who had telephones at 5:30 a.m., and the endangered families prepared to flee from their homes at daylight, if necessary. Meanwhile, all began moving all they could from their cellars.

Ice crashed against houses shaking the entire structures while cellar windows were shattered and the icy flood poured in.

Richard Hall, Lynn Ritchey and Arnold Smith and several other men began the dangerous task of dynamiting the ice gorge, some falling into the water several times and narrowly escaping the grinding blocks of ice.

The blasting began below the covered bridge leading to Cypher Beach, and proceeded upstream. Back of the Cronemiller ice plant, the gorge piled up to an estimated 25 or 30 feet, Mrs. Cronemiller said.

On several properties the ice floe was piled to eight feet in height. Block measured as much as two feet in thickness and as much as 150 square feet in area.

Blair Cessna, highway caretaker, helped get the ice jam broken and highway plows pushed the huge cakes from the road.

The blasting continued until after noon, and about 3 p.m. Saturday the last of the gorge moved downstream and the swollen creek returned to its channel.

The Cronemiller and Elwood Replogle families, whose properties lie between the highway and the creek in the Hopewell Township, Bedford County community, suffered the heaviest losses.

Mr. Cronemiller estimated his loss at $1,000, including damage to his dwelling and ice plant, a young orchard, and the loss of 20 chickens.

Mrs. Cronemiller said that they were unable to get coal into their house because the ice surrounds the house and the blocks are so large it is difficult to move them.

Replogle's loss included the smashing of a garage, floating a brooder house 500 feet and moving a chicken house 150 feet. Forty chickens in the building survived.

Mrs. Bernice Scutchall, a widow with three small children, found only a few lumps of coal where five tons had been dumped beside a cellar window a few days earli