Shades of Agnes: Evacuations ordered across part of Pennsylvania
Delaware, Susquehanna rivers expected to crest well above flood stage, with major flooding forecast for Harrisburg, Easn.
The remnants of Tropical Storm Lee led to what one AccuWeather meteorologist called it a "firehose" of tropical downpours falling on land and waterways already overcharged by August's record soaking.
The flood zone extended across most of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and large swaths of New York and Connecticut.
Even as they expressed confidence in the strength of the Susquehanna River levee system that protects Wilkes-Barre, Kingston and other municipalities, Luzerne County ordered the evacuation of about 100,000 people from low-lying areas that were inundated by Agnes.
The Susquehanna was projected to crest Thursday night at 40.7 feet in Wilkes-Barre, just shy of the top of the 41-foot levee built after Agnes.
In Harrisburg — where state government shut down and sandbags were being heaped around the governor's mansion — Mayor Linda Thompson said as many as 10,000 people had been ordered out of low-lying neighborhoods and away from the banks of the Susquehanna. The river was expected to crest at 29 feet overnight Friday or early Saturday — 12 feet above flood level — and inundate downtown.
"This is serious," Thompson said, adding that people who stayed home did so at their own risk. The city had deployed buses to take residents to shelters and is considering a curfew, she said.
By midday Thursday, four deaths had been reported. A man in the southern Dauphin County community of Derry Township died when the foundation of his house collapsed as he bailed water out of the basement. A motorist on Route 322 in Lancaster County was trapped in a vehicle and drowned.
Another person in Lancaster County was swept away while wading across a road, while a driver in North Lebanon Township was struck by a car after abandoning a stalled vehicle.
At Hershey Park in Dauphin County, two bison that couldn't be rescued from fast-rising waters at Zoo America were euthanized.
PennDOT and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission urged motorists to avoid unnecessary travel in eastern Pennsylvania, including the area from Harrisburg north to the New York border, east to the New Jersey border and south to the Maryland border.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett activated more than 500 Pennsylvania National Guard members. The governor has not issued an emergency proclamation because the one issued Aug. 26 in anticipation of Hurricane Irene remains in effect.
The American Red Cross opened shelters across the state for those displaced by the rising waters. In the Wilkes-Barre region, evacuees were told to expect to be away at least 72 hours.
Officials in Columbia and Wyoming counties banned all non-essential personnel from driving. Schuylkill County also closed its courthouse and related court offices.
Perhaps anticipating the worst, the Weather Channel dispatched its most recognizable face to the Wilkes-Barre: Jim Cantore, a reliable television presence during hurricanes and blizzards.
The Delaware River spilled over its banks in Easton. Several bridges over the Delaware between Pennsylvania and New Jersey were closed. The river was expected to crest at 2 a.m. Friday in Easton at 33.6 feet, or 11.6 feet above flood stage, and in Riegelsville at 30 feet, or 8 feet above flood stage.
Those levels are similar to 2004, when remnants of Hurricane Ivan caused millions in damage.
The eastbound lanes of the Schuylkill Expressway, one of the chief arteries into Philadelphia, were closed by a rock slide. Parts of interstates 80 and 81 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike were also closed and could remain flooded through the weekend, according to AccuWeather in State College.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dispatched engineers to levees and dams along the Susquehanna to monitoring water levels. The Corps closed gates at several dams in New York State and Pennsylvania.
According to the National Weather Service, the week's disastrous weather is the result of some unfortunate atmospheric choreography. A frontal boundary barreling along the jet stream snagged rain from Lee and dragged it north. At the same time, other tropical rains hovering over the Atlantic have blocked the front's progress, leaving the moisture to churn overhead with inches-an-hour cloudbursts.
Comparison to Agnes are apt. The June 1972 storm jogged up the East Coast from the Gulf of Mexico, which was also Lee's birthplace. It combined with a low-pressure system over the mid-Atlantic states and dumped as much as 19 inches of rain in parts of Schuylkill County.
Wilkes-Barre and Harrisburg suffered the greatest damage from Susquehanna flooding. It was the country's first billion-dollar storm and was blamed for about 130 deaths through the east.
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