WILKES-BARRE, Pennsylvania - More than 150,000 people fled rising river waters that threatened the old coal-mining town of Wilkes-Barre today after floods killed at least 16 people in the eastern United States.
With buildings submerged, roads washed out and rivers surging after days of torrential rain, authorities declared emergencies across
swathes of New Jersey, New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Travel along the heavily trafficked Eastern Seaboard from Virginia to New York was hard-hit, and rivers threatened to inundate major cities when they crested overnight.
In Wilkes-Barre -- nicknamed "The Diamond City" in the 1800s for its coal riches -- up to 200,000 people were ordered to evacuate as the Susquehanna River threatened to overwhelm a flood control system only completed in 2002, officials said.
The Coast Guard used helicopters to rescue up to 70 people stranded on rooftops and about 150,000 people left before sundown, local authorities said. The Susquehanna was expected to crest late in the evening and overnight. Police and National Guard stood ready to enforce a 9 pm curfew.
"The worst part is yet to come," said Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, speaking on Fox News on Wednesday afternoon.
A map posted by the National Weather Service showed flood warnings spread over 104,000 sq km of the United States, an area roughly the size of the state of Kentucky or the country of Iceland.
Wilkes-Barre raised its levees after 1972 when the river overflowed, swelled by storms whipped up by a hurricane rain, and killed six people. Overnight the water was expected to test the level of the levees' new height -- 41 feet.
"We have a very dangerous situation on our hands," said Brian Hughes, county executive of Mercer County, New Jersey, which includes the state capital of Trenton, where a mandatory evacuation was ordered for part of the city.
"This is going to be the largest flood we've had maybe since 1955," he said.
New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, recalling the Hurricane Katrina that killed thousands in New Orleans last year, said people should take evacuation orders seriously.
Trenton evacuee Louise Colbertson said police knocked on her door about 9 am and ordered her to leave. "The cops told me I had one minute to wash the shampoo out of my hair and get dressed," she said in a shelter.
"This has been a really horrible experience, I can't even imagine how the people survived Katrina," she said.
More than 2,200 people were ordered to leave Montgomery County, Maryland just north of Washington D.C., amid fears that an earthen dam on a small lake could give way.
More than 5,000 residents of Broome County, New York had evacuated and moved to shelters with many houses in the town of Conklin under water, said county spokeswoman Colleen Wagner.
"The river has just enveloped many of these homes," she said. "There hasn't been anything like this in a hundred years."
In Virginia, an 8-year-old girl died when she fell into a flood-swollen stream and was sucked into a culvert, authorities said, and Virginia State Police said eight motorists died during heavy rains which persisted for days.
Three people in a car drowned in western Maryland, trying to navigate a flood and two teenagers from Keymar, Maryland, were missing and feared dead.
Three people died in flood-related car accidents in central New York, State Police Lt. Robert Galletto said. Two truckers were killed when their rigs fell into a sinkhole and a motorist died after swerving into a ravine along a washed-out road.
In Wayne County, Pennsylvania, officials confirmed one flood-related death.
- REUTERS
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