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First Posted: 9/4/2014
MEHOOPANY TWP. — Pete and Sharon Morgan are caught between the home they love, a gas lease and a hard place.
After their home, which sits on a slice of property less than one acre along Mehoopany Creek, was flooded in August, 2011, they set out to restore it back to livable conditions and make it better than it was.
But now they are asking whether it might be better to get out.
Just a few days before Tropical Storm Lee rocked Luzerne County this week three years ago, rains from Hurricane Irene submerged much of Wyoming County wrecking homes along the Susquehanna River in Tunkhannock, Bowman Creek in Noxen and further downriver in Exeter and Falls townships.
Pete Morgan, 55, and Sharon Morgan, 50, were not spared when flood waters from raging Mehoopany Creek ripped through town and much of the outlying neighborhood, and the basement of their two-bedroom single-story home had to be gutted.
They built a porch on the front and spent an extra $20,000 of their own money restoring the basement and improving drainage in the back yard to protect their small house from future floods — which many say are inevitable.
But a collection of caveats swirls over the little home. Given its vulnerability to flooding, it has been approved for a federal buyout through the Federal Hazard Mitigation Assistance program, but the Morgans believe the government’s offer will not give them a break-even chance to start over.
The insurance company requires the Morgans to cover their house for $196,000, which doesn’t include personal belongings, but FEMA is offering about $125,000.
“Everybody’s saying it’s worth $200,000 if we’re going to insure it,” Pete Morgan said. “But we’re only going to give you $125,000 if we’re going to buy it.”
They agreed they would need about $160,000 to move laterally into another home without taking out another mortgage.
Further, a mineral-rights lease with natural-gas developer Chief Oil & Gas has stalled the buyout process because the Federal Emergency Management Agency will not release funds for land that has an active gas lease.
The gas lease is not much; in fact they got only $1,400 when they signed on with their neighbors in April 2011. They have received no royalty payments since then because Chief is not drilling for gas below their property.
If Chief started producing gas there, payments to the Morgans likely would total no more than $20 a month because their parcel is so small.
But that little lease seems to have thrown a wrench in the Morgan’s efforts to vacate.
Lease to be ended
The Morgans have worked out the details with Chief to shut down their lease, but the complicated matter has stumped the county’s Emergency Management Agency officials, who are unsure how to proceed under the new rules.
The FEMA policy set forth on May 4 says mineral-rights leases must be extinguished before FEMA will release the funds, and Wyoming County Emergency Management Agency Director Gene Dziak has five other leased properties hung up because owners want to hang on to the earning potential stored up below their land.
Because they are willing to end their lease, the Morgans don’t understand what is delaying word from the government on how to proceed.
Their insurance premium has gone up, and their taxes increased by 20 percent because of the home improvements. And just about any rainfall is enough to keep Sharon Morgan up at night worrying the creek again will crest its banks.
“This place is a tiny little house. It’s really cute and I’d really like to live here,” Sharon Morgan said. “But it’s too expensive, and it’s not safe.”
County-wide efforts
For the last three years, Dziak and his staff have been seeking solutions for the homes wasted by rising waters from the Susquehanna River and several streams and that cut through the mostly rural county.
Dziak said they have been geographically blocking together properties to conserve energy, time and money.
The first collection of 10 properties between Eaton, Meshoppen and Tunkhannock townships have been completely cleared. The municipalities now hold the deeds and any standing structures have been leveled, rendering the land open space never to be developed again, as the feds require.
Dziak is working with about $3 million to complete all buyouts, though he could not say the total dollar amount because several properties, including the Morgan’s, still are pending.
Few signs of Irene’s devastation remain in Wyoming County. Most of the buildings in downtown Tunkhannock that were swimming in several feet of water have been restored to their former condition. A few sediment socks still lay along Bowman Creek and storm drains in Noxen, but most of the buildings have been aired out and reoccupied.
Arguably, the small town of Mehoopany is furthest behind in restoration.
Many of the buildings in what residents call “downtown” are empty waiting for a buyout out or to be leveled.
Kimberlee Fletcher lives in an apartment downtown with her four children within sight of the creek. Her landlord worked quickly to get her home back in livable condition, but she still spent a month and a half sleeping in the Tunkhannock High School gym and a hotel before they could move back home, she said.
Life has just about returned to normal for Fletcher, though stormy weather still puts her on edge, she said.
“When it rains for three or four days straight, I start to get nervous,” Fletcher said.
There are 11 homes in the county’s southeastern municipalities, Falls and Exeter townships, that contractor Smart Recycling of Dunmore is set to start razing this week, Dziak said.
“When the contractor gets the green light, it’s actually a yellow light.” Dziak said, explaining that even after the property closing, there’s a series of inspections that involve verifying utilities are off, checking for wires and pipelines underground and identifying and disposing any asbestos inside buildings.
Dziak has been speaking with FEMA directors to reach a conclusion on what to do with existing gas leases. He still feels bitterness toward the agency after the policy change was effected before their work was finished.
“We’re still pursuing those properties with the gas leases; that is definite,” Dziak said. “We’re going to work through those issues with FEMA. I still say it was unfair what they did with the policy midstream.”
Part of his frustration stems from the nagging question: what to do with properties with gas leases that already have been bought out?
Sharon and Pete Morgan would like to grow old in their home, they said. They believe either re-routing the stream bed or building up the banks could be enough to protect her home, Sharon Morgan said.
“If they would fix the creek and get us out of the flood plain, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation,” she said.