CNN
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Multiple rounds of intense rainstorms have turned streets into gushing rivers, trapped drivers and forced water rescues and evacuations across the Northeast – and it’s bringing back memories of Hurricane Irene in deluged Vermont as the flood threat continues Tuesday.
Over 4 million people are under flood alerts across the Northeast on Tuesday, including parts of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
Slow moving showers with intense rainfall rates are expected to further inundate streets with rain in parts of northern Vermont and far northeast New York – two states that suffered severe flooding Monday. The flooding left at least one person dead in New York’s Orange County.
A high risk of excessive rainfall covers much of Vermont, “highlighting 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 is under a state of emergency due to the dangerous flooding that 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, Vermont’s Urban Search and Rescue team coordinator Mike Cannon told reporters.
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, leaving whole communities under water and damaging major infrastructure.
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 had risen nearly 14 feet Monday and passed major flood stage as the water continued to climb, threatening further flooding.
With water in downtown Montpelier running from knee to waist deep, residents stranded in their homes and businesses and roads closed, Montpelier City Manager William Fraser told CNN the situation is looking much worse than it did in the 2011 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.
In New York, where six counties are similarly 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.
Seven-day rainfall totals across much of the Northeast are already at 300-500% of normal levels, according to the Weather Prediction Center.
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.
Betsy Hart called 911 when the floodwaters suddenly started rising fast Monday at the basement of her Chester property in Windsor County, Vermont.
“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.
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 Office of the Governor of California.
Crews from Michigan, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Connecticut are on their way to assist as well.
Sumber: www.cnn.com
