Well the east got hammered with rain, add to that the warming days and snow melt.And that has brought the Susquehanna river to “biblical levels” as Brad from Starrk Moon would say. The flows are around 500,000 plus CFS. That is more than twice the average flow over the lip of Niagara falls. So as any good boater would we got a group together to see what we could find. Jeremy Laucks, the Smith boys Toffer and Tim,Brian Cox and myself put on just below the Holtwood dam and made our way down to the islands below the Normanwood bridge, catching some massive waves and dodging huge holes along the way. As we scouted the area looking for the best waves. We saw that the group of onlookers from the bridge now included the PA state police. We gave them the head tap sign that we were ok and pealed out headed to the bear trap channel. As Jeremy is throwing a pan am the State police helicopter came over the island hovered shouting over the pa asking if we were in distress? After a few more head taps and rides and several passes of the chopper the word from the pa was now “Exit the river immediately ,exit the river immediately ” . Now not wanting to anger anyone we made our way to the take out and were met by eight of PA’s finest state police. They informed us a flare was seen and we were the ones presumed to be in need of saving. A short exchange of ID’s and we were left with a note asking that “Before you go next time give us the heads up PSP Lancaster station (717)299-7650.”
This is your public service announcement please call so you can save yourself the gut pains that come from paddling up to eight troopers and parking lot full of EMS units who don’t look really happy with you. Stay safe and have fun. Matt Samms
