March 20, 2024 - ChaddsFordLive.com

Ida, an ‘800-year storm’

_1JF6606-Grant — Brandywine Conservancy’s Director Of Community Services Grant DeCosta addresses Chadds Ford Township residents during a presentation of the flood study project spawned by the effects of Hurricane Ida.

The Brandywine Conservancy and its partners are taking their flood study meetings on the road. The first stop was in Chadds Ford Township this week.

Grant DeCosta, the conservancy’s director of community services, conducted the session as he did a larger meeting at the conservancy last month. This week’s meeting focused on reminding Chadds Ford residents what the conservancy and its partners are doing to help prevent the disastrous flooding that took place on Sept. 1, 2021, when Hurricane Ida hit.

Teaming up with the conservancy are Chester County Water Resources Authority, and the University of Delaware Water Resources Center, among others. Those three entities have taken the lead in the study project.

According to DeCosta, “Hurricane Ida was predicted to be a little over 14 feet. Our prior record was 17 feet but, what came into our area during Ida was 21 feet.”

He said that was unprecedented and “nothing we could have prepared for.”

The conservancy had 10 buildings impacted. Homes in the area were damaged or destroyed, as was Hank’s Place at Route 1 and Creek Road. Water volume from the storm was virtually “off the chart,” he said.

Water volume is measured in cubic feet per second, and DeCosta explained that a cubic foot is roughly the size of a basketball. Analysis from upstream and downstream indicates the volume from Ida was somewhere between 42,000 and 76,000 cubic feet per second, “which makes that an 800-year storm,” he said.

Goals of the study include understanding where and why the flooding happens to determine how best to protect properties in and around the floodplain, and to develop models for mitigating damage.

Potential solutions include looking at structural issues, retrofitting and making enhancements to current structures, and right-sizing existing infrastructure. Other potential solutions include looking at ways to increase flood storage capacity, restoring and preserving the current flood plain, and making policy and regulatory changes.

DeCosta said the study should be in draft form this spring and published this summer.

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.

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Blogging Along the Brandywine: Standing ovation, 90 years late

Arts & Entertainment

It happened Sunday, March 17 in the Adler Theater of the Wells School of Music at West Chester University — a musically sophisticated audience jumped to its feet in a roaring, standing ovation while the last note of the performance was still ringing through the recital hall, demanding an encore.

The ovation was for the Kennett Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Michael Hall and for 21-year-old pianist Maxim Lando of Great Neck, Long Island, N.Y.

Twenty-one?

In his 21 years, Lando has performed at The Kennedy Center; at Carnegie Hall’s 2017 Opening Night Gala with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nezet-Seguin; with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra; the Israel and Moscow Philharmonics as well as the China NCPA Orchestra in Beijing.

Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times described Lando’s playing as “brilliance and infectious exuberance” combined with “wild-eyed danger.”

On Sunday afternoon, the Kennett Symphony Orchestra and Lando, playing the nine-foot Steinway concert grand, combined their talents to perform “Piano Concerto in One Movement” by Florence Price.

A concerto is a piece of classical music that features a soloist accompanied by an orchestra.

So, who is Florence Price you may ask?

The Delaware Valley and the rest of the musical world only began to discover Price in 2018 when WRTI first introduced her “Violin Concerto #2” to Philadelphia audiences. In her c.1935 letter to Boston Symphony director Serge Koussevisky, Price wrote:

“To begin with I have two handicaps – those of sex and race. I am a woman; I have some Negro blood in my veins.”

Florence Price was born Florence Beatrice Smith on April 9, 1887, in Little Rock, Ark. to respected, professional parents. According to her biography, she gave her first piano recital at age 4 and published her first composition at age 11. After graduating valedictorian of her Catholic convent school at age 14, she enrolled in the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts where she studied composition and counterpoint.

Because Price was from a racially mixed family, she listed her hometown as Pueblo, Mexico, and passed as Mexican to avoid discrimination.

In 1934 she performed her “Piano Concerto in One Movement” only once with the Chicago Musical College. Despite its musical brilliance, rich virtuosic passages and powerful hand-stretching chords, her magnificent concerto, reminiscent of Rachmaninoff, was soon forgotten.

Price composed over 300 works including four symphonies, four concertos, as well as choral works and music for solo instruments.

These works were re-discovered in 2009 when scattered pages were found 56 years after her death, in her long-deserted, dilapidated vacation home south of Chicago.

Through communication with relatives, the scores were found and the full “Piano Concerto in One Movement” was published by Shirmer, the oldest music publisher in the United States, in March 2020.

After the concert, Lando remarked about the concerto, “It deserves to be played as much as all the other concertos.”

In my heart, Sunday afternoon’s thundering standing ovation was not only for Michael Hall and Maxim Lando but for Florence Price, just 90 years delayed.

As a footnote, many of us know of the events of Easter Sunday 1939, when famed operatic contralto Marian Anderson was denied permission to perform in Washington, DC’s Constitution Hall because of her race. Upon hearing this, Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, organized a concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Over 75,000 people attended. As her final number, Anderson chose “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord” a spiritual, arranged by her long-time friend, Florence Price.

About Sally Denk Hoey

Sally Denk Hoey, is a Gemini - one part music and one part history. She holds a masters degree cum laude from the School of Music at West Chester University. She taught 14 years in both public and private school. Her CD "Bard of the Brandywine" was critically received during her almost 30 years as a folk singer. She currently cantors masses at St Agnes Church in West Chester where she also performs with the select Motet Choir. A recognized historian, Sally serves as a judge-captain for the south-east Pennsylvania regionals of the National History Day Competition. She has served as president of the Brandywine Battlefield Park Associates as well as the Sanderson Museum in Chadds Ford where she now curates the violin collection. Sally re-enacted with the 43rd Regiment of Foot and the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment for 19 years where she interpreted the role of a campfollower at encampments in Valley Forge, Williamsburg, Va., Monmouth, N.J. and Lexington and Concord, Mass. Sally is married to her college classmate, Thomas Hoey, otherwise known as "Mr. Sousa.”

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Police Log March 20: Thefts, DUIs, crashes

Police

Pennsylvania State Police

Media Barracks

• State police said they arrested a 31-year-old man from New Castle for shoplifting at the Acme in Concord Township. The arrest came on March 18 but no details were released on what merchandise was taken.

• Detra Bush, 27, of Wilmington, was arrested for shoplifting at Lululemon in Concord Township, a police report said. The report said Bush was arrested inside the store on Jan 12, after she tried stealing a pair of leggings valued at $118. Police found the leggings in her shoulder bag.

• A 60-year-old Chadds Ford woman was the victim of fraud. A police report said she was scammed out of $25,500 worth of Bitcoin. No other details were released.

• State police said David Harvey, 24, of West Chester was arrested for DUI at a Sobriety Checkpoint at Conchester Highway and Featherbed Lane in Concord Township on March 17. The arrest came at 1:13 a.m.

Avondale Barracks

• Charles A. Martinez, 23, of Avondale, was cited after his car crossed into oncoming traffic and struck two other vehicles, police said. The accident happened on March 15 at the intersection of E. Street Road and Conservatory Drive in East Marlborough Township. Police said Martinez went through the intersection when he crossed into oncoming traffic striking the second car’s driver’s side mirror, then crashing into the driver’s side door and rear passenger door of the third vehicle. No injuries were reported.

• Police said Jennifer A. Rice, 51, of Media was cited after for her involvement in a two-car crash at the intersection of E. Street and Parkerville roads on March 14. The report said Rice stopped at the stop sign on Parkerville Road but failed to wait until all traffic had cleared before crossing onto Lenape and was struck by an oncoming vehicle.

• Police said they cited a 17-year-old boy from West Chester following a two-car crash on E. Doe Run Road in East Marlborough Township on March 15. The other driver was injured and transported to Chester County Hospital. The report said the second vehicle was stopped in traffic waiting to turn onto Oak Tree Road when the youth struck her from behind.

• Chelsea E. Kowash, 23, of Kennett Square was cited after she struck another vehicle at Lenape and E. Street Road on March 17, police said. According to the report, Kowash was driving east on Lenape but failed to stop at a red light.

• Police said Jonathan M. Chiffons, 37, of Newark, was cited following a one-car crash on Unionville Road on March 11. According to the report, Chiffons was traveling south on Unionville Road just north of Lily Lane but veered off the right side of the roadway striking a utility pole. No injuries were reported.

• Police said a 55-year-old woman from Pennsbury Township was ripped off after leaving her purse in an Uber. The report said an unknown person took the purse that had $750 in cash, a passport, driver’s license, eye drop medication, as well as the handbag. Troopers from the Avondale barracks are investigating.

• George M. Driesbach, of Kennett Square was cited for making an improper left turn that led to a two-car crash on Bayard Road in East Marlborough Township, according to a police report. The accident happened on March 9. The report said Driesbach was southbound on Route 1 and made a left-hand turn into a parking lot but struck a second vehicle driving north on Bayard Road. No injuries were reported.

• Police said Lawrence E. Hall, 24, of Oxford was cited for following too closely after a two-car crash on Route 1 in Pennsbury Township on Feb. 29. The accident happened at 4:25 p.m. just north of Parkerville Road. According to the report, Hall was driving south on Route 1 when the other vehicle slowed for traffic and was struck by Hall.

• A 17-year-old boy from West Chester was cited for driving too fast after the BMW X3 he was driving ran off Hickory Hill Road in Pennsbury Township on Feb. 17. According to the report, the teen was driving north on Hickory Hill but lost control and ran off the road while negotiating a curve. The car went into a ditch and overturned. No injuries were reported.

• Police said Lois A. Vanderburg, 77, of West Chester was cited after her car ran off the road in Pocopson Township on March 11. The accident happened just after 1 p.m. on Lenape Road west of Red Bridge Lane. Police said the car left the roadway and struck a tree. Longwood EMS transported Vanderburg to Chester County Hospital.

About CFLive Staff

See Contributors Page https://chaddsfordlive.com/writers/

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