Hundreds Forced to Flee Flooding

Flooding on the Ohio River forced hundreds of people from their homes Sunday, while residents of flooded towns upstream in Pennsylvania and upstate New York scraped mud from soaked homes and businesses.

The past week’s burst of flooding, snow, ice and cold has been blamed for at least 36 deaths from the Plains into New England. In upstate New York, five members of one family died when a washed-out road sent their car into a reservoir.

Officials in many areas had not yet fully measured the damage.

Washington, D.C., was also hit with another bout of winter misery when the snow-swollen Potomac River burst its banks, causing what is expected to be the city’s worst flooding in a decade.

The Potomac rose to 7 feet above flood level, causing authorities to close several low-lying areas near the river banks.

Sections of the George Washington Parkway, the main route to Washington National Airport, were shut, forcing travelers to use much-slower local streets. The Chain Bridge, which spans the Potomac and links the Maryland and Virginia suburbs of Washington, was also closed.

In Georgetown, one of Washington’s most prestigious areas, businesses were putting sandbags in front of storefronts in an effort to prevent or limit flood damage.

Washington’s principal waterfront, a stretch of seafood restaurants along Maine Avenue, was blocked off. So was Independence Avenue, one of the streets that runs along the Mall between the Washington Monument and the Capitol building.

Across the river in Alexandria, Va., authorities were requiring residents to move their cars from areas alongside the Potomac.

President Clinton on Sunday declared Pennsylvania a disaster area because of the flooding, but Gov. Tom Ridge, who spent the night at a state police barracks after his residence in Harrisburg flooded, complained of a slow response from the federal government and said he would ask for more aid than was already pledged to offset the costs of a raging blizzard 12 days ago.

Ridge, a Republican, said Washington and the Federal Emergency Management Agency had ignored his pleas for help since the stormy weather hit.

The Ohio River crested Sunday at several spots along West Virginia’s northern Panhandle.