Saranac Lake, NY, Mar 26, 2012 — During this membership drive week, we'll be looking back at the one big story that shaped much of our news coverage over the last twelve months, a series we're calling The Year of the Floods.

It's a story with two major chapters. Communities are still picking up the pieces from horrific flash floods in late August. But all that came AFTER what was the first record-setting flooding of 2011.

Beginning in April, torrential rains combined with heavy snowmelt, sparking weeks of flooding that caused tens of millions of dollars worth of damages. In part one of our series, Brian Mann looks at the historic rise of rivers last spring that triggered emergencies from Potsdam to Port Henry.