US: Storms cause flooding, force evacuations

By Nouran Salahieh and Lauren Mascarenhas, CNN

(CNN) — Intense rainstorms inundated the Northeast United States, turning streets into rivers, forcing evacuations and prompting officials in Vermont’s capital, Montpelier, to close its downtown area.

The catastrophic flooding threatening Vermont has drawn comparisons to Hurricane Irene in 2011, which left entire communities submerged and killed at least 40 people across the US. Over 3 million people are under flood alerts Tuesday.

Montpelier issued an emergency order closing its downtown area until at least noon on Tuesday, due to the flooding. The city manager said a “potentially dangerous situation” is facing the capital.

“The Wrightsville Dam only has 6 feet of storage capacity left. If water exceeds capacity, the first spillway will release water into the North Branch River,” city manager William Fraser said in a Facebook post. “This has never happened since the dam was built so there is no precedent for potential damage. There would be a large amount of water coming into Montpelier which would drastically add to the existing flood damage.”

With water in downtown Montpelier running from knee to waist deep, residents stranded in their homes and businesses and roads closed, Fraser told CNN the situation is looking much worse than it did in the 2011 flooding.

Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine are under a lower risk for excessive rainfall than they were Monday, but the threat of flooding persists. Officials are working to address damage and urgent needs in Vermont and New York, which suffered the brunt of the flooding Monday. The flooding left at least one person dead in New York’s Orange County.

The situation in Vermont highlights the potential for catastrophic flooding that has not been seen in this part of the country since 2011,” the National Weather Service said.

“We have not seen rainfall like this since Irene, and in some places, it will surpass even that,” Vermont Gov. Phil Scott said Monday. Vermont remains under a state of emergency, after flooding forced dozens of rescues and evacuations Monday.

Two areas in the state, Weston and South Londonderry, were left inaccessible due to flooding, and search and rescue teams were working to regain access and perform welfare checks Monday, the state’s Urban Search and Rescue team coordinator Mike Cannon told reporters.

Betsy Hart called 911 when the floodwaters suddenly started rising fast Monday at the basement of her Chester property in Windsor County.

“Water was rising quickly after being pretty tame most of the morning,” Hart told CNN’s Miguel Marquez. “All of a sudden it was in the house.”

Hart said she’s never experienced flooding like what she saw Monday. “It was too close for comfort,” she said.

“With Hurricane Irene, the water was raging like this but it never really got to the house,” she said, standing on a road near her home as water rushed nearby.

Numerous rivers across Vermont have been rising amid the downpours, with some swelling higher than levels reached during Hurricane Irene. The Winooski River at Montpelier rose nearly 14 feet Monday and passed major flood stage as the water continued to climb, threatening further flooding.

Nearly a dozen different areas across Vermont, from the Connecticut River in the south to the Missisquoi River in the north, were expected to see moderate or major flooding before rivers begin dropping later Tuesday.

Vermont’s Ball Mountain Dam and the Townshend Dam, are expected to overflow their spillways early Tuesday morning and “release unprecedented quantities of water,” the US Army Corps of Engineers warned Monday night. Warning of “severe flooding,” the agency urged residents in threatened low-lying areas of nearby Vermont and New Hampshire communities to evacuate.

In New York, where six counties are under a state of emergency, a 35-year-old woman died after being swept away by floodwater as she tried to evacuate her Orange County home Sunday. The flooding has caused “easily tens of millions of dollars in damage,” county Executive Steve Neuhaus said Monday.

Some areas in New York were hammered with more than 8 inches of rain within a 24-hour period.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the state will very likely meet the threshold of $37 million in statewide damages and become eligible to receive funding from FEMA.

“You can see highways, roads and bridges that are still unpassable, homes that have been destroyed. We still have people without power and as we talked about earlier, one woman actually lost her life, so it is still treacherous in many of these regions,” Hochul said.

Rainfall is at 300-500% of normal

Seven-day rainfall totals across much of the Northeast are already at 300-500% of normal levels, the Weather Prediction Center said.

Widespread rainfall of 2 to 4 inches have fallen across the Northeast from eastern Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey into Vermont and New Hampshire. Isolated rainfall totals higher than half a foot have been seen in several states.

In Vermont, the storms battered Mount Holly Heights with a whopping 8.66 inches of rain and Tyson with 8.40 inches.

Meanwhile, Stormville, New York, received 8.61 inches while West Point – where drivers had to swim out of their cars Sunday – got 8.12 inches.

Rainfall in West Point totaled more than 7.5 inches in a six-hour period Sunday afternoon, according to preliminary data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That’s a 1-in-1,000 year rainfall event for the area, according to a CNN analysis of NOAA’s historical rainfall frequency data.

Elsewhere, South Kent, Connecticut, got 6.80 inches, and West Lawn, Pennsylvania got 6.69 inches.

‘All of a sudden it was in the house’

Vermont State Rep. Kelly Pajala said she woke up Monday morning to flood water already at the front step of her Londonderry apartment. She and her son packed up their two cats and evacuated to higher ground.

“For people that were here during Irene, it feels like a very similar experience,” she said. Hurricane Irene brought destructive flooding to the state in 2011, causing major infrastructure damage.

Flood water could be seen gushing between homes in Chester, where some structures were visibly damaged and trucks were wheels-deep in water.

Don Hancock, dripping in water from head to toe, told CNN he has only lived in his Chester house for less than a year and watched floodwater enter the basement and garage of his new home.

“I was a firefighter in New York. I’ve been there many of times to help people out, but I’ve never lived this side of it,” Hancock said.

Now, he’s just waiting for the water in his neighborhood to recede. “Once the water goes down we go day by day, clean it up and move on. What can we do?” Hancock said.

Windham and Windsor counties have been the hardest hit by the flooding, according to Cannon, from the state’s Urban Search and Rescue Program.

Officials have made 50 rescues across Vermont, including using boats to help people trapped in their homes or in cars that were swept away in fast-moving waters.

The state of California is also deploying urban search and rescue personnel to assist emergency response efforts as Vermont grapples with flooding, according to a Monday tweet from the California governor’s office.

Crews from Michigan, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut are on their way to assist as well.

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