Flood and Volunteer Stories

Wilkes University Engineering Student Gives Wyoming Valley High Flying View Of Flood

Devon Albrecht, a senior mechanical engineering student at Wilkes University, helped give his neighbors in the Wyoming Valley some high flying views of the Susquehanna River flooding by donating his time as a pilot. Albrecht shot video for WBRE-TV, where his father, Mark Albrecht works. He also was the wings for Don Carey, his uncle and a photographer for the Times-Leader.

Albrecht, a Shavertown resident who earned his private pilot’s license in 2009, has worked at the Wyoming Valley Airport in Forty Fort since he was 15 years old. He wanted to fly over the flood and his father suggested that he offer to fly and provide aerial video and photographs. Devon Albrecht strapped two Go Pro high definition cameras to the plane to capture the video. Carey was along to take still photographs.  The costs of the plane were absorbed by the television station and newspaper, but Albrecht donated his flying time.
 
Taking off from Avoca, where the planes from Wyoming Valley had been moved to stay out of the path of the flood, Albrecht flew over Pittston and proceeded all the way to Bloomsburg. “It was devastating to see everything,” Albrecht said. “At the airport in Bloomsburg, planes were floating in the water.”
 
Albrecht said he got the flying bug early. His grandfather was a flight instructor during World War II and his mother’s employer, who also is a private pilot, started treating him to plane rides at an early age. On campus, Albrecht is a resident assistant in Evans Hall.