A hero of the flood
Published: July 5, 2006
At about 7 p.m. on June 27, some 150 Boy Scouts and leaders and 50 staff members were settling in at Treasure Island Boy Scout Camp - an island in the Delaware River near Pipersville.
Camp had just opened for the 2006 camping season.
At 7:15, a call came in from the Cradle of Liberty Council. The Delaware River was rising. The Council ordered an immediate evacuation.
Camp program director Brian Hoffman of Silverwood St. in Roxborough and camp ranger Mark Berkery rang the assembly bell, gathering the campers and leaders.
“We told them to bring a sleeping bag and a toilet kit,” Hoffman said. Everything else was to be left behind.
The camp has two boats it uses to ferry campers from the shore to the island. The boats have a capacity of about 11 plus the boat driver.
Hoffman piloted one boat while Berkery manned the other.
The river was already running high and muddy, with debris that included large logs carried by the swift current.
A harrowing hour and 20 minutes later, the 200 people had all been carried across the raging Delaware to safety on the shore.
For the campers, not much thought was given to the debris that threatened the boats.
“Most of the Scouts thought it was cool,” Hoffman said. “The driver thought it was not cool. You just grit your teeth and go from there.”
At one point part of a tree branch snared the propeller of Hoffman’s boat. He cut the engine to get the propeller free, but without power, the boat drifted downstream in the current. Once the propeller was freed up, he was able to get back on course.
Hoffman’s actions were praised by Sal Poidomani, director of camping and property for the Cradle of Liberty Council.
“He was soaked to the skin. He put himself at considerable risk, because that river was raging,” Poidomani said.
Hoffman and Berkery each made 15 trips from the island to shore. After all the campers and staff were safely ashore, the two returned to the island to check every campsite to guarantee that all were safely evacuated and nobody was left stranded on the island.
Not only were all the campers and staff safely evacuated by Hoffman and Berkery, but there were no injuries. Some of the Scouts were put up for the night at a nearby firehouse, where they spent the night singing and telling stories of their adventures, according to a Cradle of Liberty press release. By the next day all had been sent home.
As the Delaware began receding last week, Scout officials were able to return to the camp on Friday to begin assessing damages.
Campers who were to have begun their camping experience on July 2 will be sent instead to Resica Falls Boy Scout Camp in the Poconos. After that, the camp season at Treasure Island was to await a damage assessment, Poidomani said.
Treasure Island has been in continuous use since 1913. The island is in New Jersey. The Cradle of Liberty Council also owns Marshall Island just upstream. Marshall Island is in Pennsylvania.
The two islands are joined by a suspension footbridge.
Hoffman teaches mathematics at Academy Park High School in Sharon Hill. He took the job at Treasure Island because he was off for the summer.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: