Five die in Northeast flooding
More than 100,000 people in Pennsylvania and New York were forced from their homes Thursday after driving rain turned communities along numerous rivers and streams into flood zones, leading to at least five deaths and prompting emergency water rescues.
Remnants of former Tropical Storm Lee spurred flood watches and warnings from Maryland to New England, with some areas in Pennsylvania drenched with up to 9 inches of rain. The swollen Susquehanna River spilled over its banks in hard-hit Binghamton, N.Y.
The National Weather Service expects an additional 4 to 7 inches of rain to fall on the region in the coming days. Much of the ground in the area is still saturated from Irene’s heavy rainfall at the end of August, leaving it unable to absorb the water from the new storm.
At least four people were killed by flooding in central Pennsylvania, where crews scrambled to rescue residents from submerged cars and homes, said Cory Angell, a spokesman for the state’s emergency management office. In Maryland, a 49-year-old man drowned in floodwaters near his home in Anne Arundel County, the Maryland Emergency Management Agency said.
In Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County, about 75,000 residents were ordered to evacuate Thursday afternoon, Board of Commissioner Chairwoman Maryanne C. Petrilla said. The Susquehanna River was expected to crest there about 2 a.m. Friday at roughly 40 feet, almost the same height as the levee system.
“We’re hoping that the levees hold and that we don’t have massive flooding,” she said. More than 4,000 people have sought aid in 10 county shelters.
In Wilkes-Barre, Pa., about 20,000 people near the Susquehanna — the same areas that suffered damage from Hurricane Agnes in 1972 — were told to leave their homes for higher ground and bring a 72-hour supply of food and medicine, said city spokesman Drew McLaughlin.
In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo paid a visit Thursday to Binghamton, where the Susquehanna had spilled over its banks and flowed into city streets. Authorities used boats and buses to evacuate some of the approximately 20,000 people ordered to leave their homes.
Cuomo’s office said “communities in eastern and central New York, from the southern Adirondacks to the Pennsylvania border, who were struggling to clean up and rebuild after Irene, are facing another onslaught of devastation.”
Some areas in the state received about 10 inches of rain from the storm, and more is expected.
In Broome County in upstate New York, 20,000 people have been ordered to evacuate, county spokeswoman Colleen Wagner said.
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