Extended Forecast: Rain, Rain, and uhh...Rain

Damn! Is Lupe still around?
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Heavy rain pounds East coast
Hundreds evacuated

(AP) -- A foot or more of rain fell in parts of the Northeast, forcing hundreds from their homes, rupturing small dams and slowing Amtrak trains to a walk.

No injuries had been reported in the stricken areas of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland, but at least one woman had a harrowing rescue.

Tammy Spiese was trying to clear debris on her property near Reading, Pennsylvania, when rising water carried her into a drainage pipe. She had to be pulled out by her husband and a police officer.

"I was in the water up to my neck," Spiese said. "It was very powerful and I had to hold onto the rocks above."

South-central New Jersey was hardest hit with at least five small dams rupturing during the night, said Kevin Tuno, the Burlington County emergency management coordinator. Many of the dams in the area hold small reservoirs in low-lying residential areas.

"We have a lot of houses and vehicles that were damaged," Tuno said Tuesday.

The heaviest rainfall in Burlington County was about 13 inches at Tabernacle, the National Weather Service said.

More than 500 county residents were evacuated from their homes and from the roofs of cars stalled on flooded roads.

"First they started with one family and then another family and then it rapidly escalated," Tuno said.

Parts of northeastern Maryland got up to 8 inches of rain that flooded streets and basements Monday, and some motorists had to be rescued when their cars stalled in deep water, officials said. Most of the water had subsided by Tuesday morning and major roads were reopened, said Harford County official Ernie Crist.

At least 15 Amtrak passenger trains were delayed Monday evening in Maryland, said spokesman Daniel Stessel. Water flowing over the tracks in many places forced north- and southbound trains to slow to just 2 mph, or walking speed, he said.

An estimated 6 inches of rain fell in eastern Pennsylvania's Berks County, where firefighters used a boat to rescue three people and a dog trapped in two homes by Manatawny Creek, which rose about 4 feet in minutes.

Water and mud rushed into a bowling alley Monday at Pottsville in eastern Pennsylvania after a sodden embankment behind the building collapsed, and custodian John Bova and his wife hurried to open doors to let the flood out. Then they shut off the electricity and fled, he said.

"The mountain just came down," Bova said. "We were lucky to get out."

 

Damn!

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High winds, hail slam Midwest
Wind gusts up to 80 mph

(AP) -- Thousands of homes and businesses had no electricity Wednesday in the path of a long line of thunderstorms that stretched from Tennessee to the Great Lakes. Wind gusted to 80 mph in Kentucky and Tennessee on Tuesday, and hail stones as big as softballs were reported in parts of Illinois, the National Weather Service said.

As the storms passed through central Illinois, a tornado leveled a manufacturing plant Tuesday at Roanoke and roofs were blown off several houses, officials said.

Workers at Parsons Manufacturing plant in Roanoke, about 20 miles east of Peoria, went to storm shelters before the twister struck. "The sound was so intense you had to hold your ears shut," office worker Dave McClallen said. Utilities around Kentucky reported about 254,000 homes and businesses lost power during the storms, including 115,000 in the Louisville metropolitan area, the most there since a 1974 tornado.

Traffic lights remained out Wednesday in much of Louisville. Chip Keeling, a spokesman for Louisville Gas & Electric, said power had been restored to about 40,000 customers by Wednesday morning but some might remain in the dark for an extended period. About 60,000 customers were blacked out in central Tennessee, but service had been restored to about half of them by dawn Wednesday, Nashville Electric Service reported.

Some 51,000 customers were still without power Wednesday morning in Indiana, down from a high of up to 136,000 during the storms, said Cinergy-PSI spokeswoman Angeline Protogere. Some might have to wait until Thursday for the lights to go on again, she said. One man was killed in Indiana when a tractor tipped over on him while he cleaned up storm debris, officials said.

Utilities said at least 10,000 customers lost power in Michigan. Funnel clouds were spotted in Wisconsin near Manitowoc and Clarks Mills. One touched down near Clarks Mills, damaging farm homes and other rural buildings, said Manitowoc County Sheriff's Sgt. Andrew Colborn.

 

Holy ****. Can see the storm from my window, and it's moving rapidly from Jersey. Looks like it's gonna get ugly!

 

Heard it's gonna get pretty ugly tomorrow.

Stay safe.

 

Yo does this weather suck, or what. No sign of abating in the City.