Washed away: The flood of 1955 and the Ewing-Yardley Bridge

HELEN KULL

As I prepare to write this column in mid-July, there have been terrible storms and floods in the country. With family spread around in the Northeast, I’ve been particularly attentive to the storms in this part of the country. The storms have been devastating New York and Vermont, and the photos are at once horrifying and riveting.

Living here in the Trenton area for more than 40 years, I’ve certainly witnessed some awful flooding here in the Delaware Valley. It’s always a financial disaster, and an emotional nightmare. My thoughts and prayers —and often some financial support as well—go out to all those who have been affected.

In the midst of this, my mind turned to the locally devastating flood of 1955. I did not live here at the time, and even if I did, I would have been much too young to understand the impact of a flood.

But I hear it mentioned from time to time, and I’ve seen the plaques marking the bridge and the high-water marks. So, I thought I would learn a bit about it this month, and share it with others of you who also may not have lived here at the time.

According to Wikipedia and several other sources, the original “YardleyvilleGreensburg Bridge” was built in 1835, connecting “Yardleyville” in Bucks County with the old “Greensburg” section of Ewing, near Wilburtha Road. Made of wood planks supported by stone platforms, there were six sections that constituted the span of the wooden toll bridge.

Unfortunately, a flood in January of 1841 washed away three of the wooden spans. The structure was rebuilt with more wood, and lasted for six decades, while being renamed the “YardleyWilburtha Bridge” to reflect the updated village names.

But a more powerful storm came up the East Coast in October 1903, causing devastating flooding, and wiping out the bridge’s wood spans entirely. (Reportedly, this storm also delayed the first ever World Series game in Boston, and the assembling and testing of a new ‘flying machine’ by two brothers in Kitty Hawk, NC!) But this time, the bridge was rebuilt using steel trusses supported on the original stone foundations.

That bridge lasted until the summer of 1955, in which drought and temperatures consistently in the 90s prevailed in the area.

The drought was finally broken by nearly 3 inches of rainfall on Aug. 7. But the rain didn’t stop there. On Aug. 12, Hurricane Connie came up the East Coast, and produced 10” of rain within 48 hours in the Delaware Valley, putting the river at flood stage.

A week later, Hurricane Diane followed the same path up the coast, and left another 8+” on the oversaturated land and overflowing rivers, resulting in catastrophic flooding up and down the Delaware and destruction everywhere.

Some Ninety-nine people in the region lost their lives, homes and buildings were destroyed, roads washed out, and hundreds of millions of dollars of damage was done. To this day, the 1955 Flood is considered the worst ever recorded on the Delaware.

Of course, several of the bridges crossing the Delaware were washed out, including Ewing’s Yardley-Wilburtha Bridge. While the flood waters raged over it, the bridge was mortally damaged when struck by a house which had been torn from its foundation and washed down the river.

Though declared unsafe and closed, plans were made to rebuild a temporary bridge, to again provide a river crossing at that location.

The temporary bridge lasted a few years, but the original stone foundations were later found to be compromised, and in 1961 the bridge was slated for complete demolition. By that point, the Scudder Falls Bridge nearby was nearly complete, and another river crossing was available to motorists.

Contemporaneous newspaper accounts say that the old bridge foundations did not go easily, and required dynamite, wrecking cranes and underwater earthmovers to finish off the 1835 stoneand-mortar “works of art.”

It must have been an impressive construction, to be sure.

As I prepare to submit this, three people have died and four are missing after flooding in Washington Crossing, PA. Flooding is tragically an on-going story… Be safe, all!