Silver Creek Woman Feared For Her Life
By Robert Rizzuto, rrizzuto@post-journal.comFact Box
"I wrote my boyfriend a goodbye letter and stuck it to the mirror upstairs - I was sure that was it."
SILVER CREEK - When Shannon Bender went to sleep on her couch Sunday evening, she had no idea that within a couple of hours, the home she shared with her boyfriend A.J. Arnold would be under water.
Ms. Bender, who is nearly 10 months pregnant, woke up around 1:15 a.m. Monday morning after her cats Oscar and Emmy were wildly meowing.
"The cats were going nuts and when I got up to see what was going on, I found about 2 inches of water in the kitchen," she said. "I called my dad to tell him that my house flooded but at the time I thought it was just us. He told me that he was flooded out too and then things started getting scary."
Her father, Bill Bender, was also seeing water where it shouldn't have been as he was a resident of the ill-fated Silver Village mobile home park which was almost entirely destroyed by the flooding. He wanted to come to his daughter's rescue but couldn't drive anywhere without a boat.
"Within 15 minutes of calling him, I was up to my waist in water and I grabbed the cat and went upstairs," she said.
"One of them already went up there but the other one was trying to balance on a table that was sinking."
Ms. Bender made it upstairs and called 911 on her cell phone. She said that the first dispatcher told her help would be there as soon as possible and hung up. She called back about five minutes later and another dispatcher stayed on the line, reassuring her and trying to keep her calm, until the battery on her cell phone finally went dead.
"My phone charger was floating somewhere downstairs and the phone died," she said. "I was alone and scared. I ripped the air conditioner out of the window and was looking outside for anyone. It was pitch black and the only thing you could see was water. I heard people screaming for help in the distance."
As Ms. Bender sat inside her bedroom with Oscar and Emmy, and her soon-to-be-born son A.J. Jr. inside her, she feared that death was inevitable and that the water would soon claim all of their lives.
"At first I was afraid I was going to go into labor then I thought I was going to die," she said. "I wrote my boyfriend a goodbye letter and stuck it to the mirror upstairs - I was sure that was it."
She said that she thought about jumping out the bedroom window, as the water wasn't too far from reaching the second floor of the home, but stopped out of fear that she would end up in Lake Erie and never be found.
Then around 3:30 a.m., when the water was only four stairs away from reaching the second floor where she found refuge, help arrived.
She explained that deputies with the Chautauqua County Sheriff's Department and other people she couldn't identify broke through the front door and came into the house.
"I put the cats in a small cage I found upstairs and went onto the stairs. They threw me a rope and I put it around my waist and went through the water with them to get outside," she said. "Then they helped me get into the bucket of a bulldozer, and took me away from the house."
The paramedics checked Ms. Bender, who was fine other than being shaken up, and took her to the Silver Creek High School where the Red Cross was setting up their Client Assistance Center.
"There were only about 13 people at the school when I got there but I called my mom in South Dayton and she picked me up," Ms. Bender said. "When I got to her house, I called A.J. to tell him what happened and he couldn't believe it - he was just speechless."
They lost their home, most of their possessions and their car, which was parked outside the house, but they did manage to save the things they had acquired for the baby.
"Since the baby's stuff was on the second floor, we were able to save most of it," Ms. Bender said. "But we didn't have renter's insurance and the car only had liability on it, so we're out of luck with that. But we have already found another place to live and our family and friends have been helping us along. We are really thankful for that."
Ms. Bender is scheduled to have labor induced today to welcome A.J. Jr. into the world. Thanks to the generosity of a landlord in Forestville, where A.J. is from, they will soon be living in a new apartment where they will be able to start their new life together, as a family.
"We can buy new stuff in time but if that water would have kept rising and no one came to get me, I don't know what would have happened," Ms. Bender said. "But we're all safe and alive and at the end of the day - that's all that matters."
The Chautauqua County chapter of the American Red Cross has helped about 75 families in the Silver Creek area since it was devastated by the floods earlier this week. The group has dispensed more than $16,000 in disaster relief, in the form of clean-up kits, comfort kits and direct financial assistance.
People in Southern Chautauqua County can help their neighbors to the north by dropping off donations at the Jamestown Savings Bank Ice Arena anytime from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information or directions, call 484-2624.
Donations can also be made to the Red Cross, by calling its Jamestown office at 664-5115.
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MADA65
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08-15-09 12:26 AM
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I'll back up what KGreen said - and it should have been clear, marino13, that I did not screw up the letters in the word. By the way, your example only works when the correct letters are used - which would not be accurate in this case. Waste and waist, get the point?
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KGreen
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08-14-09 10:02 PM
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Marino13 - Had you been online this morning you would have saw that the spelling was "waste" and not the correct spelling as to what it is now. We were commenting about it not because we "thought" it was wrong, it was in fact incorrect at the time it was posted.
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marino13
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08-14-09 4:38 PM
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The Post-Journal has Ivy League graduates working for them compared to the Warren paper. I am somewhat confused about the comments about the spelling of waist. It looks from the on line article above they spelled it correctly. Way too often people critique the spelling or grammar (sp?) to often on the comments. Take a look at the below and see if you can read the below passage---although we do not want to teach our children this way yet. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Get the point???
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KGreen
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08-14-09 8:59 AM
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Lol its sad how bad the post journal is at spell checking. You would think it would be common sense.
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MADA65
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08-14-09 8:15 AM
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I am glad Ms. Bender is fine (time to induce delivery?!?)... but disappointed the P-J, once again, made very simple spelling errors. She should have been up to her 'waist' in water, and I hope to god that she did not put that rescue rope around her waste (again, should be waist). Unprofessional.
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