In the daylight of August 9, when it was apparent the Trout Run Firehouse’s kitchen was a total loss from Tropical Storm Debby and volunteers were rallying resources and setting up relief areas, Davis Swift, operations manager of Camp Susque, had an idea. Camp Susque is three miles out of town and on a hill, so though they had lost power they were otherwise in good shape to lend resources. The specific resource Davis was thinking of then was the network of Camp Susque alums across the country who deeply love this small town in Lycoming County. He said to his brother, who is the executive director, “Peter, if we put up a Facebook post we could probably raise $10,000 for the fire hall.”

So, Camp Susque set up an online fundraiser for the Trout Run Volunteer Fire Company, posted it on social media, and then focused on what they could provide immediately, such as coffee, water pumps, and even a six-by-eight-foot walk-in fridge that had been donated to them. This meant the makeshift community kitchen that volunteers Jenny and Chris Jones ran for weeks didn’t need to rely on coolers and endless ice runs.

“Jenny and Chris were amazing,” says Davis. According to him, Camp Susque has really awesome coffee and really big coffee makers, so for four to five weeks he brewed coffee and drove into the valley at 4 a.m. “My goal was to be first, but Jenny usually had the griddle fired up, frying pounds and pounds of bacon.” The sustenance was appreciated by the many folks that Fire Department Captain Chuck O’Brien, who was also the emergency management coordinator, relied upon.

“One of the first celebrations that we had,” Chuck says, “was that no one was swept away.” The rain gauge in Cogan House Township got nine inches of rain, and Lewis Township (where Trout Run is), had eight. The creek came up from its normal flow to its highest flow in about two and a half hours.

The Trout Run crossroads, where Route 14 joins Route 15 as it curves north, hosts homes, businesses, a travel complex with a Subway, a Methodist Church, and the Fire Hall where many community events are held. The small but mighty Trout Run Volunteer Fire Department, of which Davis is a member, has fifteen active members and eighty regular members. It covers or assists with over 100-square-miles of coverage in Lycoming County, including the townships of Lewis, Cogan House, Gamble, and Cascade. The firehouse was built in the 1950s before the entire area was established as a flood zone.

Trout Run was not, however, unprepared. When disaster struck this day, the fire department and the citizens it serves looked disaster in the eye and forced it to blink.

Chuck says it’s thanks to their proactive preparation that lives in Trout Run were saved. Once they knew Debby was about to hit, they set up shifts. “Being in this kind of a basin we’re in, you know things are a little more predictable,” he explains. “Basically, what we do is [monitor] Lycoming Creek itself. We will call all the membership in and send them to different [flood-prone] locations.” The data they collected made the difference.

“We had 115 individual [residential] damage assessments,” Chuck continues. “We had thirteen businesses damaged, public infrastructure that included the fire department, the post office, the town’s maintenance building, [and] the travel plaza. There were two vehicle repair shops involved, and also the Trout Run Hotel.”

Davis says he happened to be on a trip into Trout Run when the bridge went out. The stream had undermined the abutments, and he watched as the pavement leading to the bridge washed away and the stream completely shifted to go around the bridge. The structural integrity of the entire fire hall was compromised too. The most obvious damage was that the kitchen itself fell into the creek.

“[We lost] all of our kitchen appliances and everything,” Chuck says. “We lost a ten-burner commercial stove. We lost a big-budget air, or convection, oven, a couple of slicers, a couple big mixers, you know, lots of pots and pans.

“They did find a lot of them down in here, believe it or not,” he adds, pointing to the mud and reconstruction of the bridge below. “They [the appliances] were buried in this [mud and sludge].”

In addition to Camp Susque, a Christian camp, Amish and Mennonite members of the Christian Aid organization were on hand to help. Buttons and T-shirts were created to raise money. Chuck explains that he and his wife purchased the products bearing the “We Are Trout Run Strong” motto, and that between $2,000 and $5,000 was raised that way. All of that money went to help with the town restoration.

Meanwhile, quietly online, the fundraiser Camp Susque had set up for the fire company raised over $20,000 that first week. After three weeks they were over $40,000. Camp Susque got the ball rolling by committing $1,000 and EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas producer in Lycoming County, matched the first $5,000 raised, and mostly individual donors did the rest.

Davis says EQT and Seneca Resources did a lot more than contribute financially to the relief efforts. They were quick to roll in with temporary offices for firefighters and shower facilities. Many of their employees helped with clean-up efforts.

Here it is a year later, and Chuck says work has yet to begin for the kitchen—but with good reason. Engineers and architects are donating their time to complete plans for the repair, and they’re waiting for the building to settle. He says this will determine whether they can rebuild there or if the whole building will need to be scrapped.

The good news is the trucks bays are still intact. And the spirit of the community is stronger than ever.