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01/21/2012 05:35 PM

Mild winter helps flood victims rebuild

By: Lara Greenberg

A few inches of snow here and there is nothing compared to the accumulation Twin Tier residents got last year. But they said they're happy this time around, because the September flooding was enough. And this mild winter has allowed them to continue the rebuilding process. Our Lara Greenberg has the story.

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ATHENS, Pa. -- As plows take on the overnight snow, residents in the Northern Tier are just happy it wasn't a huge storm.

"We're just getting out from the flood and everything. But this. We'll take this. This helps a lot of people."

The mild winter has allowed flood victims to continue cleaning up and rebuilding from the devastating September flood.

For Kelly Shadduck, it's given her time to fix her condemned home's foundation and move back in.

"If winter would have been bad, you know reconstruction would have been nearly impossible," Shadduck said.

The Shadducks still have to rebuild the inside of their home, but they wouldn't have been able to finish the outside if it hadn't been for the mild winter weather.

"We had to put all new windows in our home. A lot of them were broken. We had to replace boarding and everything in order for any insulation to be put back into the home," said Shadduck.

Besides completing outside work, low heating bills and no snow have allowed flood victims to put more money and time into construction.

"Today's the first day we've had to shovel and I mean just little things like that believe it or not make a huge difference when you really don't have the time to begin with," said flood victim Brian Myers.

As we head into February, flood victims hope the weather stays mild so their houses can finally start to resemble what they used to look like.