Ivan still wreaking havoc

WHEELING, W.Va. — Hundreds of people evacuated their homes Sunday in parts of Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania as rivers and small streams were swollen beyond their banks by the torrential rain dumped by remnants of Hurricane Ivan.

The Ohio River inundated parts of Wheeling and other West Virginia river towns, as well as communities on Ohio’s shore, and the Delaware River flooded parts of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania.

In addition to flooding, hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses were still without electricity Sunday, most of them in Florida and Alabama.

The hurricane and its remnants had been blamed for at least 50 deaths in the United States, 16 of them in Florida, and 70 deaths in the Caribbean.

The Ohio River crested Sunday at Wheeling at about 9.3 feet above flood stage, after submerging the city’s riverfront park and amphitheater. It mostly covered the city’s midriver Wheeling Island, which holds residential neighborhoods and Wheeling Island Racetrack and Gaming.

West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise spent the night with evacuees on the gym floor at Wheeling Park High, one of several Red Cross shelters, after a brief tour of the area by road.

“I saw mobile homes uprooted and tossed downstream,” he said. “I saw human lives uprooted.”

Downriver, residents had been urged to evacuate parts of Moundsville, where the Ohio crested at 10 feet above flood stage.

A highway paralleling the West Virginia shore of the river was blocked in several places between Wheeling and Parkersburg, and the Ohio River bridge in New Martinsville was closed, state emergency officials said. Schools in some areas were to be closed today because roads were blocked by water and mudslides.

All around West Virginia, flooding and mudslides had blocked more than 200 roads and damaged hundreds of houses, authorities said.

About 1,700 people were out of their homes Sunday in eastern Ohio, where the Ohio River was rising to at least 6 feet above flood level, authorities said.

In the southeastern Ohio city of Marietta, streets were underwater near the river and about 200 people had to leave their homes in what could be the city’s worst flooding since 1959.

The 126-year-old Rinard Covered Bridge over the Little Muskingum River near Bloomfield “literally disappeared,” said Mike Cullums of the Washington County Emergency Management Agency.

Hundreds of New Jersey and Pennsylvania residents fled their homes along the Delaware River on Sunday. Several bridges that cross the Delaware between the two states were blocked by high water, and emergency officials said the river was not expected to crest until evening.

At least six deaths related to the storm have been reported in Pennsylvania, including a man swept away by flooding after clinging to a tree for 45 minutes. One person suffered a heart attack and another adult and a 2-year-old girl drowned, state officials said, but details of those deaths were not immediately available.

In Phillipsburg, N.J., state police helicopters were used to monitor a propane tank and a house that were floating down the river, authorities said.

“It was one of the most amazing things I’ve seen,” said Sgt. Gerald Lewis.

The Susquehanna River was nearly 8 feet above flood stage Sunday morning at Bloomsburg, Pa., the National Weather Service said. Dozens of homes in Scranton and Old Forge were evacuated as well as the western tip of Bloomsburg. The Susquehanna had forced hundreds from their homes in Jersey Shore, between Williamsport and Lock Haven.