Almost everything Gavin Ayers, 13, and Gabriella Napersky, 11, had left of their father who died 10 years ago was in boxes in the basement of their Coal Street home. Gavin hoped to one day wear his old sweaters and loved to read notes written in his father's hand.

But after floodwater from last Sunday's storm seeped into the basement and soaked those boxes, he doesn't know how much can be saved.

"We're trying everything because you can't get those words back. All of his love letters, clothes, cards, things like that, because I saved everything he ever gave me," Gavin's mother, Georgeann Ayers, said.

Most of the sweaters are wool, and she is doubtful they will survive. Pictures, old report cards, school projects and baby items that the newest addition to the family, 1-month-old Gabe, would have used, were destroyed by the water. The family moved in less than a year ago and most of their belongings were still in boxes in the basement.

A week after a storm dumped at least a half foot of rain in the area, officials are still struggling to get a handle on the total amount of families - at least 300 - and total cost of the damages - several million dollars and climbing.

But as residents pick up the pieces, they discover the real toll is in what that money can't replace.

For 81 years, Peter Hillard Sr. weathered multiple floods that damaged a wall near the creek time after time. Sunday was the last straw for the family homestead, which is now condemned.

"I can't keep doing this, going to bed and not knowing what is going to happen," he said.

After losing family items to previous floods, he learned to keep everything important, including handmade needlework, upstairs. That didn't lessen the blow of finally losing his lifelong home, where he continued to lead a relatively independent life. He's temporarily staying with a granddaughter.

Every weekend, the Fischi house was filled with their sons' friends hanging out in the fully furnished rec room in the basement. A 50-inch TV, pool tables and weight room were down there. A pool outside gave them a place to swim.

Those are all objects that can be replaced, but what can't be, at least immediately, is the area Chris Fischi created so his kids would have a supervised place to hang out.

In time, he wants to create a new rec room and safe haven for his sons, and this time he's thinking about putting it in the attic.

While the Ayers-Napersky family sorted through the soggy, muddy piles last week, they searched for possessions that might be saved, such as a caricature of the two older children with younger brother Gharrison, 3, drawn two years ago at the Bloomsburg Fair.

"We're trying to salvage as much as we can. We have muddy pictures we are trying to save, 'cause you can't get them back," Georgeann Ayers said.