Rain Swamps Three States in New England

Kayakers paddled down the streets of York Beach, Maine, where much of downtown was blocked off with police tape and firefighters in a boat shut off propane tanks. Water was powerful enough to wash an embankment out from under train tracks in Milton, N.H.

A heavy, weekend-long rain spell flooded or washed away dozens of roads, sent dams overflowing and forced hundreds of people from their homes in southern Maine, northeastern Massachusetts and much of New Hampshire.

A creek that normally runs 60 yards from Tom Johnson’s home in Salem, N.H., was flowing into his basement Sunday, overwhelming a pump that handles 1,500 gallons of water an hour.

“My backyard is an ocean,” Johnson said. “It looks like the beach.”

Forecasters said the rain, which began Friday in many areas, could total 12 to 15 inches in southern New Hampshire by the time the storm passed late Sunday or today.

The National Weather Service said 5.12 inches of rain fell Saturday in Concord, N.H., more than triple the previous record for the date. Boston had picked up 6.34 inches of rain in 30 hours by Sunday morning, and Andover, Mass., collected 9.8 inches over the same period.

Eastern Massachusetts was forecast to get 5 inches more by Tuesday.

“This is the tip of the iceberg,” Massachusetts emergency management spokesman Peter Judge said. “It’s going to get worse.”

The governors of the three states declared states of emergency, clearing the way to activate National Guard troops or seek federal help if needed.

“We don’t know how much damage we have until the water goes down,” said Charles Jacobs, assistant to the director of the Maine Emergency Management Agency.

Some Milton residents evacuated after the National Weather Service warned that an upstream dam was in danger of failing and unleashing a 10-foot wall of water. The state Office of Emergency Management said at least a dozen dams were being closely watched.

Meanwhile, in Texas on Sunday, a strong line of storms with heavy rain, large hail and high winds forced a dramatic rescue of two teenage boys caught in a flooded drainage ditch.

The teens had stopped to help the driver of a car swept into a ditch by flash flooding and were dragged under by the strong currents.

One was sucked into a 70-foot-long drainage pipe and spat out on the other side of the road, said Fire Chief Glen Arthur in Hewitt, a small town about 90 miles north of Austin.

The other teen was trapped under the car; firefighters pried him out.

Arthur described the current in the flooded ditch as “overwhelming,” sucking off the boots and socks of one firefighter.

The National Weather Service said radar indicated 3 1/2 to 4 inches of rain fell in the Hewitt area.