A year after Ida swamped their Montco villages, Mont Clare and Port Providence celebrated community

In the neighboring Montgomery County villages of Mont Clare and Port Providence, both blasted a year ago by the remnants of Hurricane Ida, Saturday was a day for reconnecting.

“Some of us haven’t been around. A lot of us just moved back in, and we’re showing off our new houses, our new, restored houses,” said Gerrie Cirigliano, who wasn’t able to return to her Port Providence house until June.

The house Cirigliano shares with her husband, Glenn Murphy, was the starting point for what was dubbed a “refreshment crawl” along Port Providence Road and Walnut Street in Mont Clare. Both Mont Clare and Port Providence are in Upper Providence Township, across the Schuylkill from Phoenixville.

For residents, the day’s events, including a fun run on the Schuylkill River Trail and a potluck, were a chance to reflect not just on the trauma of the floodwaters and the displacement experienced during months of hotel living, but also on the community that helped them through the storm.

» READ MORE: Their house was flooded by Hurricane Ida. So they lifted it 8 feet in the air.

“What was amazing is how many people gathered together to help each other get everything done,” said Don Frisco, who has lived in his house on Walnut Street for nearly 60 years.

Rachel Poggi, who lives in Mont Clare, said she gets goose bumps when she talks about the help so many people provided — including a couple from Phoenixville at Saturday’s gathering.

“This has really brought this little community together. It’s remarkable,” said Poggi, who was hosting Saturday afternoon’s potluck in her backyard, which backs up to the Schuylkill Canal.

The sense of loss remains palpable. Next door, Poggi’s daughter’s house is waiting to be demolished. The kitchen floor collapsed and a corner of the house fell off, opening it up as if it were a dollhouse. Poggi said her son-in-law has a landscaping business and had to move because he couldn’t risk losing his equipment again.

Mont Clare residents David and Sarah Clark tried to find another place to live but said they couldn’t find anywhere they liked as much as Mont Clare. “There’s nothing like it,” Sarah Clark said.

For many families, financial uncertainty remains.

Erin Hovoet said she and her husband, who moved their beds back into their house on June 30, are still waiting for their final insurance check. “We don’t know how much it will be. It’s great that we’re home, but there’s still the financial stress of it,” she said.

It’s even worse for some neighbors who still haven’t returned because they haven’t been able to settle with their insurers, said Hovoet, who has 17- and 13-year-old sons.

When people ask her why she would return to a place with all that water and the risk of flooding, Cirigliano says she couldn’t stay away.

“It’s beautiful to have the path, the river, the environment, the nature, the birds, and the turtles, and we have all this every day. It’s like paradise to us,” Cirigliano said.

“In fact, I renamed it Portopia,” she said. “It’s Port Providence, but I call it Portopia because of the nature and how much we love it.”