 Corning, New York. A city of 17,000 people in the beautiful Finger Lakes country. Flag Day, 1972. It's just a little street where... The people of Corning celebrate a special event called Soundings, a festival of music of every kind. From the Corning Philharmonic to rock groups, folk singers, and barbershop quartets. It supports the arts in Corning. Everybody pitches in, and everybody enjoys it. Well, just about everybody. About 5 a.m. Friday, June 23rd, a wall of water about five feet high came down this among river. It was like a tidal wave, and it swept over the dykes and undating a major portion of the city. We had received a report at about 2 o'clock in the morning that the river would flood at around 5 a.m. We sent out a warning to our people. We were not warned about nor did we expect anything like the tidal wave that beset us. The resulting damage is unbelievable. Three days later, the rain stopped. Corning drew a deep breath, countered its dead, and assessed its damage. Among the worst hit was the Corning Glass Center. More than one half of the museum's irreplaceable collection of glass had been under five feet of water. The museum's library, the greatest in the world devoted to glass, was a shambles. The WCLI and WCBA Emergency Flood Network is pleased to present at this time a special statement by Amory Houghton, Jr., Chairman of Corning Glass Works. Mr. Houghton. Thank you, George. Other than mourning with the families who have lost almost 20 people at the latest count, it really is still too early to assess the loss both in human lives and in property. But several things come quite clear. This was a disaster of the first order for our community. Possibly the worst flood in its intensity ever to hit our part of the world. That more people weren't drowned is a miracle, particularly in view of the suddenness with which the flood struck. Every single person I've talked to has not only been full of sorrow, obviously great sorrow, but also full of determination. And this, of course, is the underlying spirit upon which all hope for this community is based. We're not licked, we're going to bounce back, and for many, we're going to start again. A substantial sum of money, possibly as much as $400,000. And the purpose of this money will be to enlist fan support for the work of a large group of young people in this valley to help those who simply can't help themselves to dig out from the ravages of the flood. This will involve possibly over 300 young people and will continue throughout the entire summer. They're going to clean out the garage and hose off the stuff. And I don't know what else, but I'm certainly grateful for them. These are the people of our community. Those less severely affected have volunteered to man the desks. They are young people, union members and executives from local industry, housewives, businessmen and city employees, but all committed to each other and to rebuilding. Those who have been devastated are here to begin rebuilding their lives, and they will. My name is Leonard Settle. I'm from New York City. People have no water when we came here at all. Nothing to drink, nothing to cook with, or anything like that. Not even to take a shower or a bath, forget about it. They didn't have any clean water here at all when we first came. And we're doing our best to supply them with water, drinking whatever they need. As long as they need us, I think we'll be here. Money to be spent to do construction, reconstruction, whatever will be treated just as if there were no insurance, and it will be appropriated using normal... Corning glass quickly got back to work. Back to work running a $600 million business. But first, back to work rebuilding their city. This is something you mentioned yesterday. People are just plain tired here. And they're everybody who can take a weekend. I think they deserve it. My name is Lindsay Davidson. I normally live in Boston, Massachusetts, and work at the Museum of Fine Arts in the Music Room. People are working down at the Museum rescuing glass. People are working at the college rescuing slides, and we're rescuing all the photographs possible. These photographs are from the collection here and those of all over the world. So they're good for research and putting things together, things that are broken down at the Museum. They were in file cabinets in the Museum, and everybody just quickly put them in boxes and carried them up to the Carter School. And they were sort of moldy, and they tried to take them apart and they just ripped apart. And they had the bright idea of sinking them in the bottom of the pool. And so we fish them out box by box, lay them out and dry them. They'd be absolutely dry before you can pack them, otherwise they'll mold again. And they crinkle, but you try and keep this photograph with the label. If not, just say photographs and the labels. People of command encouraged me by saying that not to worry about it, that there'll be help coming and that they'll build the city better than it's ever been before. And we believe that. We think we can be done. See, I'm patriotic. I've had the flag out every day. We've had a major disaster, and we're taking it like normal American people. Trying to do our best. And what else can you do? The house was just hanging on like one column of rocks in that corner after the flood. But I think the weight of the house kept the house from really moving. We're getting a few cracks in the plaster inside now, but not too bad. So the house is on Jackson. We'll be able to make it, you know, come back and put it back together. I think about the future here, because this is where our past is. And we've had a lot of good years around here. That was the only antique piece of furniture we had right there. It was my gradient. It was a little coffee table with marble top. And that was what was left of a tea service. We never kept that polished up. We've been fixing it up for seven years. That's how long we've lived here. And we just had it the way we wanted it, so I intend to do it again.