Record rainfalls, political battles over Gracedale and Hagedorn and the Penn State scandal involving Jerry Sandusky also made headlines. See a PHOTO GALLERY of pictures of the year.
Events in 2011 such as the gas explosion that killed five in Allentown, the fatal shooting of a police officer in Freemansburg and weather severe enough to trigger a mudslide in Liberty Township altered the landscape and tested the resilience of many in the Lehigh Valley and northwest New Jersey.
On Feb. 9, a break in a UGI Utilities natural gas main is thought to have sparked the massive explosion that leveled an entire block of homes on North 13th Street in Allentown. Hundreds of emergency responders battled to contain the subsequent fire. Killed were William Hall, 79, Beatrice Hall, 74, Ofelia Ben, 69, Katherine Cruz, 16, and Matthew Vega, 4 months.
In the wake of the explosion, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett and U.S. Sens. Bob Casey and Pat Toomey toured the blast site. The explosion prompted discussions at the local, state and federal level about the aging natural gas lines; the 12-inch cast iron main that broke in Allentown dated back to 1928.
Some lawmakers proposed legislation calling for infrastructure replacement regulations on natural gas companies while the community mourned the five victims.
Local residents, especially those in law enforcement, were again in mourning by the late summer.
On Aug. 11, Freemansburg police officer Robert Lasso responded to a disturbance call. Lasso, a 31-year-old father of two who had been with the force for seven years, arrived at 126 Washington St. at 5:06 p.m. and proceeded up an unpaved alley to the rear of Robert Hitcho's home at 440 New St. Lasso called for backup as two of Hitcho's dogs attacked him.
View full sizeRobert LassoAuthorities say Hitcho then shot Lasso in the head with a shotgun. Freemansburg police Chief George Bruneio, who responded to the earlier request from Lasso for backup, managed to take Hitcho into custody. Lasso was rushed to St. Luke's Hospital in Fountain Hill. He was pronounced dead there at 5:42 p.m.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Hitcho, who is in Northampton County Prison awaiting trial. His attorneys have said they may seek an insanity plea.
Record rainfall causes widespread flooding
Weather also was to blame for deaths in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey. More than a dozen people in both states were killed during Tropical Storm Irene and the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee in August and September, respectively.
Locally, there were no casualties, but the financial toll soared as properties were destroyed, festivals were cut short and power outages left thousands of people in the dark for days. In many parts of the region, the rainfall totals for the year were the highest on record.
In Liberty Township, the ground became so saturated that some residents there were subjected to a catastrophe usually associated more with southern California than the Northeast.
A mudslide ripped through the township pushing one house completely off its foundation and also destroying a second home. The occupants were able to get to safe ground before their homes were swept away.
The Monocacy Creek in Bethlehem swelled past flood stage several times in 2011, but one particular flood in early August proved devastating for Musikfest, which holds many of its venues along the banks of the creek in the city's Colonial Industrial Quarter. The festival had to shut down two of the venues on the final day, and organizers said the rainfall cost them $750,000 in proceeds.
But it was the indirect effects of the storms that caused perhaps the most frustration. Local officials in rural parts of Warren and Hunterdon counties blasted Jersey Central Power & Light for what the officials called an unacceptable response to power outages caused by the summer storms and a freak snowstorm over Halloween weekend.
Thousands were in the dark for several days, some up to a week.
JCP&L held public meetings in the wake of the outages to hear customer complaints and suggestions for improving service.
Different fates for those at Gracedale, Hagedorn
Two local, government-run facilities in the region entered 2011 with an uncertain fate, sparking heated political debates on both sides of the Delaware River.
In Northampton County, a plan to sell the county-run Gracedale nursing home was thwarted by a grass-roots effort to get a referendum on the May primary ballot that asked voters if they supported disallowing the sale of the home for the next five years. The referendum passed by a nearly 3-to-1 margin.
Where incumbents on council stood on the Gracedale sale seemed to spill into November's general election.
Republicans Ron Angle and J. Michael Dowd, both supporters of selling Gracedale, were ousted by Democratic challengers.
View full sizeRon AngleAfter the election, Angle acknowledged he was sunk by his stance and knew for months he wouldn't win the race.
In Hunterdon County, the issue for the state-run Senator Garrett W. Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital wasn't whether it would be sold; it was whether it would stay open.
Before the start of 2011, a state task force recommended closing either Hagedorn or Trenton Psychiatric Hospital to save money.
Gov. Chris Christie ended up targeting Hagedorn in a line-item veto, citing $9 million in savings by shuttering the 310-bed facility specializing in geriatric care.
Efforts in the state Senate to override the veto failed. State Sen. Michael Doherty, R-Warren/Hunterdon, who had been outspoken about saving Hagedorn, abstained from the vote.
Democrats later blasted Doherty for suddenly reversing course and not breaking from his party.
Hagedorn will close in June.
Crime and punishment
The year started with a slate of high-profile cases on the dockets at Northampton County Courthouse, including one that would bring District Attorney John Morganelli his first death penalty verdict in his two decades as the county's top prosecutor.
A jury in May sentenced Michael Eric Ballard to death for fatally stabbing four people in June 2010 in Northampton Borough. Ballard had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder so the jury's only charge was to decide whether he deserved life imprisonment or execution.
Ballard killed his ex-girlfriend, Denise Merhi; her father, Dennis Marsh; her grandfather, Alvin Marsh; and neighbor, Steven Zernhelt. The defense unsuccessfully painted the murders as the result of Ballard's extreme mental disturbance.
View full sizeMichael Eric BallardIn another case involving a man murdering his ex-girlfriend, Barry Soldridge Jr. in October pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in exchange for prosecutors taking the possibility of the death penalty off the table.
Soldridge fatally shot Candice Shuey and her boyfriend, Soldridge's cousin Derek Henry, in September 2010 in Lehigh Township.
Despite the magnitude of both acts of violence, the criminal case that perhaps captivated the attention of the most people in the Lehigh Valley and northwest New Jersey in 2011 wasn't one involving murder and didn't even happen locally.
In November, former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was indicted on 40 charges of sex crimes against boys -- some dating to his coaching days at the university. The longtime defensive coordinator, who at one time was considered to be Joe Paterno's successor, met the children through his youth charity, The Second Mile. Authorities allege the crimes happened over a 15-year period beginning in the mid-1990s. Some allegedly occurred on campus.
Two administrators -- Tim Curley and former Nazareth resident Gary Schultz -- were subsequently charged with lying to a grand jury investigating the case.
View full sizeJerry Sandusky, left, the former Penn State assistant football coach charged with sexually abusing boys, arrives with his wife, Dottie Sandusky, at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa. The administrators and Sandusky have all maintained their innocence.
The fallout also brought an abrupt end to the career of Paterno, who began coaching at Penn State in 1950 and has more victories than anyone in major college football history.
Amid the scandal, Penn State's trustees ousted Paterno and Penn State President Graham Spanier. The trustees said Spanier and Paterno failed to act after a graduate assistant claimed he saw Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in a campus shower in 2002.
More details on the case are expected to come to light in 2012. In December, Sandusky’s charges topped 50 when more accusers came forward, and he later gave up his right to a preliminary hearing. He's now awaiting a possible trial.
