Major Flooding/Water Rescues Underway

HAltschule

EF5
Joined
Aug 16, 2005
Messages
984
Location
Albany, New York
I thought this rainfall/flooding event now deserves some discussion since it is becoming a major incident. The Mohawk River (a major river in the Northeastern US) is forecast to experience record flooding. Major flooding is already occurring and the river is forecast to be above flood stage by at least 10 feet out near Utica, NY area. The heavy rainfall that we have been seeing for the past week or so is now getting extremely dangerous. Life threatening floods are now occurring in a very large area of Northeastern PA and much of Central and Eastern NY State. 24 hour rainfall amounts of 4-8â€￾ of rain have occurred and storm totals in some places are now exceeding 10-13â€￾ since Sunday. States of Emergencies are being issued banning people from road travel. Of significance, the City of Binghamton, NY reportedly has evacuated 2500 people from the city...with 3000 people now being evacuated from Athens, NY in the Catskill Mountains.

Recent LSR's:

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BINGHAMTON NY
341 AM EDT WED JUN 28 2006

..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..

0325 AM FLOOD ATHENS 42.27N 73.81W
06/28/2006 GREENE NY EMERGENCY MNGR

3000 PEOPLE EVACUATED FROM ATHENS ALONG THE SUSQUEHANNA
RIVER.

0325 AM FLOOD SAYRE 41.99N 76.52W
06/28/2006 BRADFORD PA EMERGENCY MNGR

300 EVACUATED FROM SAYRE ALONG THE SUSQUEHANNA RIVER.


NWUS51 KBGM 280731
LSRBGM

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BINGHAMTON NY
329 AM EDT WED JUN 28 2006

..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..

0325 AM FLOOD BINGHAMTON 42.10N 75.91W
06/28/2006 BROOME NY EMERGENCY MNGR

2500 PEOPLE EVACUATED FROM THE CITY OF BINGHAMTON.

0325 AM FLOOD CONKLIN 42.03N 75.80W
06/28/2006 BROOME NY EMERGENCY MNGR

SEVERAL HUNDRED PEOPLE BEING RESCUED ALONG THE
SUSQUEHANNA RIVER.

0535 AM FLASH FLOOD CHITTENANGO 43.05N 75.87W
06/27/2006 MADISON NY LAW ENFORCEMENT

WIDESPREAD STREET FLOODING ACROSS NORTHERN PART OF
COUNTY. SEVERAL HOMES EXPERIENCING CRUMBLING FOUNDATIONS
DUE TO HIGH WATER.


0415 PM FLASH FLOOD MECKLENBURG 42.47N 76.70W
06/27/2006 SCHUYLER NY LAW ENFORCEMENT

1.10 INCHES IN 10 MINUTES. ROADS CLOSED AND DRIVEWAY
WASHOUTS.
0530 PM FLASH FLOOD LANESBORO 41.96N 75.58W
06/27/2006 SUSQUEHANNA PA EMERGENCY MNGR

HOUSES UNDER WATER. RESIDENTS BEING EVACUATED.

0600 PM FLASH FLOOD NORWICH 42.53N 75.52W
06/27/2006 CHENANGO NY LAW ENFORCEMENT

COUNTYWIDE REPORTS OF HOUSES AND ROADS FLOODED
 
UPDATE: Unconfirmed report of 2 fatalities when a car traveling a major highway (I-88) passed over a bridge that had collapsed because of the floods. State Police only confirm that the 2 bridges are gone.

Also, new warnings have been issued for the very large Delaware River. This record flood forecast is expected to bring the Delaware River 18 FEET above flood stage. (WHOA).

THE FLOOD WARNING CONTINUES FOR
THE DELAWARE RIVER NEAR BARRYVILLE.
* THROUGH FRIDAY.
* AT 06 AM WEDNESDAY THE STAGE WAS 22.5 FEET.
* MODERATE FLOODING IS OCCURRING AND RECORD FLOODING IS FORECAST.
* FLOOD STAGE IS 17 FEET.
* THE RIVER ROSE ABOVE FLOOD STAGE YESTEDAY AFTERNOON AND WILL
CONTINUE RISING TO NEAR 35.0 FEET BY AFTER MIDNIGHT TOMORROW THEN
BEGIN FALLING.
 
CNN is reporting that 3 people died after being swept out of the bed of a pickup truck...shortly after being rescued from a stalled car in the water.

On another note, anybody ever read the Darwin Awards books?
 
Update 12:30pm EDT:

New York State Thruway closed in many areas of Eastern & Central NY. Rainfall amounts in PA now over 13" for this storm.

1000 AM FLOOD DOLGEVILLE 43.10N 74.77W
06/28/2006 HERKIMER NY LAW ENFORCEMENT
BUILDING WASHED INTO EAST CANADA CREEK.
------------------------------------------------------------
0915 AM FLOOD INGHAM MILLS STATION 43.05N 74.78W
06/28/2006 HERKIMER NY EMERGENCY MNGR
WATER SPILLING OVER KYSER LAKE DAM. EVACUATIONS BEING
DONE DOWNSTREAM IN FORT PLAINS, LITTLE FALLS, MOHAWK AND NEWPORT. NATIONAL GRID BUILDINGS FLOODED.

EDIT: Most major highways are closed in the area. My friend who is part of the Urban Search and Rescue Team for the State has been activated and they are enroute with tractor trailer and trucks full of the specialty rescue and water rescue gear. He says he sees many buildings partly underwater from the highways they're traveling.
 
My g/f Floss and I are in C PA. As of last night, hydrology forecasts were calling for river levels around here to rival the flooding from Agnes in 1972. Those are all-time records. Then, the cf pushed through the area a little more aggressively than had been expected, and the rains mostly stopped. Now the forecasts mostly call for less than record flood records.

Floss' daughter and her family live in Sunbury PA, where last night the Susquehanna was forecast to hit 33 feet tomorrow, with the level curve still rising slightly. That would be just a couple feet from the record set in 1972, and 3 feet higher than second-all-time, but now the forecast is for a crest at 28 feet. Flood stage is at 24 feet, and current level is 25+.

Here's the url for the data I'm watching, but it has had "issues":

http://newweb.erh.noaa.gov/ahps2/hydrograp...iew=1,1,1,1,1,1

Floss' daughter and her family stayed with us last night as a precaution. They live two blocks from the river, below the current level, but are protected (in theory) by a levee that holds the river back up to a level of 35 feet. It held just fine a year and a half ago when the river rose to 30 feet. They'll probably stay here tonight, too.

Outside of that particular station, some locales are reporting all-time record flood levels, per emergency personnel, etc.

The Red Cross has been calling us, and we expect to be out for a 24-48 hour deployment for damage assessment (we did that in NOLA)...starting tomorrow, apparently.

We haven't taken any pics yet, but we'll have our cameras with us if we head out with the Red Cross.

Bob
 
I was looking at the radar estimated storm total precip around eastern PA and have never seen such a widespread area of near-maxed out shading on the totals scale. Almost every square mile east of the Alleghenies in PA saw 10"+. *All* counties in the eastern half of the state flash flood warned. Unreal.
 
Floss and I spent Friday doing damage assessment for the Red Cross in Bloomsburg PA.

We assessed hundreds of homes. Most had had from 0 to 2 feet of water in them, though there were some with up to about 5 feet. Basically, every home in Bloomsburg has a basement, though, so all of the homes (in the area of town we assessed) had had their basements filled with flood water. Lots of folks talked of seeing raw sewage floating around when they returned, too, so this was nasty stuff, if not "NOLA nasty"... I saw a bird limping around, and then it was dead on the sidewalk about 15 minutes later, as well as another dead bird a couple blocks away.

As of Saturday, (when I was back for some more work) the city water supply was still totally out, and power was still out in the more seriously affected areas. There were big "sheets" of asphalt that had been displaced by the flood water, looking kind of like someone had lifted it like a quilt and set it aside 30 feet away, and foundations nearly sucked right out from under houses, etc. That was a bit of a revelation to me that water could do that much damage.

I don't have my computer with me, so I can't upload the pics yet.

Bob
 
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