'Our Katrina'
After the flood
The TH-Record's Steve Israel and Ashley Kelly tell a story: In Livingston Manor, the raging brown water roared and rose like some prehistoric monster: 7, 8, 9 feet high.
Edie McArthur ran upstairs to try and salvage whatever she could from her home on Cattail Creek — family pictures, her son's rifle collection, some clothes — but it was too late.
All she could really save from the storm — that would soon claim her niece, Jamie Berthold — was herself.
So in the dark of dawn, McArthur ran outside. But when she tried to step onto the porch, it was gone, torn away by that raging water.
McArthur, who couldn't swim, fell into the basement beneath that porch — a basement filled with water. She slipped under the water, once, twice, three times. While she gasped for air, the house above her split in half. It was swept away by that mean, muddy water.