Flooding across region not as bad as feared

As weather weirdness blew across the Philadelphia region yesterday - and not gently - homeowners and officialdom emerged from the mix of swollen streams, rising rivers, flooded intersections and toppled trees with a common consensus.

Could've been a lot worse. And has.

In June, a soggy six-day stretch dumped three to 10 inches of rain around Philadelphia and its suburbs, flooding hundreds of homes, pushing rivers and creeks well past their banks, and forcing evacuations in 13 towns.

This time, a shorter but more intense blast from a spring nor'easter dropped four to six inches over the same area in 12 hours - some of it as snow - but with far less damage.

The Delaware River, which ravaged several waterfront communities last summer, stayed within its banks this time. Power failures, closed roads and snarled commutes were everywhere - exacerbated by tree-toppling high winds - but flooding was relatively minimal, given the volume of moisture dumped in such short order.

"This storm didn't cause the devastation we saw last summer," said Michael Wood, a spokesman for Peco Energy Co., which had recorded 80,000 outages by midafternoon yesterday in Philadelphia and its Pennsylvania suburbs. "It caused mostly pockets of problems, but they were in almost every community."

New Jersey took a bigger hit.

Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey declared a state of emergency yesterday as flooding forced more than 1,400 residents from their homes. A man died, trapped by floodwaters in his car in Woodbridge, and a 79-year-old man died in Belleville, apparently from drowning.

In Cumberland County, about 30 families were evacuated from the Cedar Crest mobile home park in Vineland to escape the surging Blackwater Branch Creek and given shelter in an elementary school, said Anthony Gioielli, county public safety director. No injuries were reported.

But South Jersey was "not as severely impacted" as other parts, Codey said. It "will dry out before the rest of the state."

What the nor'easter lacked in impact it made up for in unseasonable strangeness.

In Elkins Park, morning drivers on Montgomery Avenue edged around a pool of water framed by a four-inch boundary of slush and snow. A truck parked to one side bore the logo "Free Ice Hockey."

In Lower Merion, a towering tree fell across Montgomery Avenue, not only closing the thoroughfare, but setting it afire with fallen, sparking wires.

In the western Chester County townshop of Honey Brook, crews from Pennsylvania Power & Light worked to restore power from the storm that dropped eight inches of snow on the rural community. The storm blew down utility poles on a stretch of Route 10, forcing a road closure that lasted several hours and sending tractor-trailers and other vehicles threading their way along narrow roads through Amish farm country. Another eight or nine poles were strewn across Maple Avenue north of town.

Things were even odder upstate, where seven to eight inches of sloppy snow covered Pennsylvania's northern tier, causing morning accidents that closed or clogged portions of Interstates 80, 81, and 84. And the National Weather Service warned of worsening conditions last night in Northeastern Pennsylvania, forecasting wind gusts of up to 60 m.p.h. and snowfall rates approaching one to two inches per hour.

Consider the plight of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, for which the task of keeping traffic moving kept changing with the conditions outside Philadelphia.

Sunday, crews were busy blocking flooded state roads and setting up detours as the waters rose. As snow fell yesterday morning, 160 trucks began spreading salt across the five-county Southeastern Pennsylvania region. By midday yesterday, the focus had turned to clearing as many as 50 closed roads, many of them blocked by fallen trees, PennDot spokesman Gene Blaum said.

SEPTA also had interruptions on several Regional Rail lines because of downed branches and trees. Rush-hour service was suspended on the R3 Media-Elwyn line, the R5 Paoli-Thorndale line, and the R6 Cynwyd line, SEPTA spokesman Jim Whitaker said.

Flooding near Trenton also caused morning delays of up to an hour on the R7 Trenton line and other lines had lesser weather-related delays. By rush hour, service had returned to normal on nearly all lines but the R3, where work continued on the overhead electrical lines.

Travelers at Philadelphia International Airport were delayed but problems lessened as the day went on.

Arriving flights were late by an average of 90 minutes yesterday morning, but by afternoon the average delay was down to 40 minutes, airport spokeswoman Phyllis VanIstendal said. Departures ran about 15 minutes behind throughout the day.

US Airways, which carries more than 60 percent of the airport's passenger traffic, canceled eight large-jet departures and 27 express commuter flights during the morning.

In Bucks County, the Delaware River also stayed put. Although the river was expected to crest slightly above flood stage early today in Riegelsville, no significant flooding was expected.

The county's chief concern, the Neshaminy Creek in the south, crested at 11 p.m. Sunday more than five feet above flood stage.

Some basements did take on water, but County Commissioner Charles Martin said he'd received "no reports of significant residential flooding. He credited a series of government-funded programs that have bought out more than 100 residents in flood-prone areas of Bucks and structurally elevated the dwellings of 45 others.

In Philadelphia, flooding also hit the usual suspects - Kelly Drive, Lincoln Drive, River Road and Flat Rock Road - which almost always take on high waters from the Schuylkill and the Wissahickon Creek, said MaryAnn Marrocolo, spokeswoman for the Managing Director's Office.

Main Street in Manayunk was spared when the Schuylkill crested at 11.3 feet, a foot less than originally predicted, she said. A stretch of Roosevelt Boulevard near Northeast Philadelphia Airport also flooded.

In the leafy suburbs along the city's borders, proud old trees became weakened by soaked roots and then were kicked over by cannon shots of wind. In Lower Merion, a 60-foot oak tumbled onto Montgomery Avenue at North Wynnewood Avenue, taking three power lines down with it around 7 a.m.

"As soon as the power lines hit the road, it just exploded," said Bill Renner, a township workman.

The whole intersection was ablaze, but the Main Line Reform Temple, just yards away, was not damaged. The flames were so intense they damaged the surface of the road, which still smelled of burnt asphalt hours later.

Elsewhere in Montgomery County, most creeks, including the Perkiomen at Graterford, had topped their banks, but no major flooding was reported.

About 50 trees fell in Philadelphia alone, but only light damage was reported citywide.

To view a slideshow of flooding in the region, go to http://go.philly.com/springstorm

In New Jersey, Lumberton residents recover from second big flood in three years.

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Rain dumps more than eight inches on Central Park. B7 EndText