That was the estimation, at least, of one Walton resident, Bernice Lyons, 90, who was evacuated from her flooded home and was spending several days in the living room of her neighbors, James E. Hoover and his wife, Lynn.

"She's talked off and on about the Flood of '35," said Mrs. Hoover, who was one of dozens of Walton residents to take in unexpected boarders this weekend. On Friday night, as a chill enveloped the unheated house, Mr. Hoover said that he went into the basement and splintered a chair that had been a birthday present to make kindling for the wood stove.

Clyde Harder works at the upstream end of Walton, so he was one of the first to see the flood coming on Friday.

A salesman at a Ford dealership, Mr. Harder saw the roiling brown river, suddenly swollen by millions of gallons of gale-driven rain and snowmelt, break over its banks early Friday afternoon. He and others at the dealership began grabbing keys and shuttling more than six dozen new and used cars up a nearby hill.

But Mr. Harder failed to save his own Chevy pickup. Looking over the river this afternoon from the mud-stained parking lot, he said, "It's done for." Pointing into the churning waters, he indicated the similar fate of a Winnebago, a Taurus, a Mitsubishi and a Buick. "We ran out of time," he said.