Rising Waters Caused ‘War Zone’

EASTON, Pa. -- Floodwaters crested Thursday in dozens of waterlogged communities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, thundering past downtown areas and sending debris crashing into bridges.

The worst fears were averted along the Susquehanna River in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where 200,000 residents were ordered to evacuate Wednesday. The city’s new levees held, and people were allowed to return to their homes in time for lunch Thursday.

But the Delaware River, to the east of the Susquehanna, roared over its banks, engulfing a string of riverside cities and towns for the third time in less than two years.

In Easton, where the river crested at 37 feet, a weary Chip Maragulia was pumping water out of the basement of the Monarch furniture store, where several upholstered chairs floated in muddy water.

The series of floods Easton received had been a little scary for Maragulia, 55. “I’m not a whatever they are -- geologist -- but this doesn’t seem normal.”

Forty miles to the southeast, water inundated the bohemian resort town of New Hope, Pa., swamping Odette’s, a French restaurant and the Bucks County Playhouse. The flood comes as many were completing repairs from the flood of April 2005, said Christopher T. Edwards, a county spokesman.

“There’s a lot of despair and resignation,” he said. “This has happened three times.”

The waters began receding Thursday, said Peter Ahnert, a National Weather Service hydrologist, and conditions are expected to improve steadily over the next few days. But the storms have left major damage.

Five people were confirmed dead in Maryland -- two teenage boys who drowned in a creek and three young adults who slipped into the water off the back of a pickup.

Five more were confirmed dead in Pennsylvania -- including an elderly man whose car was swept away by floodwaters -- and three in New York. An 8-year-old girl drowned in a creek in Virginia, the Associated Press reported.

New York Gov. George E. Pataki estimated the property damage to his state at $100 million.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said the storm system “devastated a large portion of the commonwealth.”

“Yesterday was a war zone in the northern tier of Pennsylvania,” Rendell said in an interview with CNN. “We choppered out over 1,000 people from rooftops.”

Along the Delaware River, many residents wondered aloud what could have prompted three recordbreaking floods in two years. Waters rose into the retail district of Easton in September 2004 as Tropical Storm Ivan weakened, then again after spring rainstorms in April 2005.

“Is it overdevelopment of areas north of Bucks County? Is it climate change? Is it just the result of a ton of water falling over a ton of bays?” said Rep. Michael G. Fitzpatrick, who represents Bucks County. “It may very well be a combination of all three.”

“The fact is, these kinds of floods have been occurring more frequently and causing more damage,” said Fitzpatrick, who has proposed legislation funding an Army Corps of Engineers study of the flooding.

The greatest sense of relief Thursday was probably in Wilkes-Barre, population 43,000, which sits in a bowl created by the Wyoming Valley.

It was the site of catastrophic flooding in 1972. That year, the Susquehanna River reached a height of nearly 41 feet and pushed through dikes to inundate the city with fetid water, killing 122 people. The city recently completed construction of a new levee system that is 41 feet high.

On Tuesday, hydrologists predicted the river would crest at 40 feet and expected the water to hit the city in the middle of the night, said Jim Brozena, the Luzerne County engineer. Brozena said he wanted to err on the side of safety and ordered the city evacuated. But early Wednesday afternoon, the storm made a slight jog to the east, dumping water on eastern Pennsylvania rather than New York.

Thursday morning dawned hot and sunny.

Mike Baum, 57, had spent the night in his truck with his five dogs -- four Dutch shepherds and one beagle -- after being turned away from a hotel. Baum could recall the strange quiet that announced the arrival of the 1972 flood: the way the birds stopped chirping, and the wind died. He knew, Baum said, that this one would not compare.

“My intuition is better, I swear, than other people’s intuition,” he said.