Rainstorm drives away East’s developing drought
Flooding closes schools, cuts power to thousands
RALEIGH, N.C. – A massive rainstorm drenched the East Coast from the Carolinas to Maine on Thursday, causing at least five deaths, flooding roads and washing away months of dry weather.
The worst of the rain fell in North Carolina, where Jacksonville picked up 12 inches – nearly a quarter of its typical annual rainfall – in the six hours. Four people, including two children, were killed when the sport utility vehicle they were traveling in skidded off a rain-slicked highway and tumbled into a ditch filled with water, North Carolina troopers said. A fifth victim in the state likely drowned when his pickup veered into a river that was raging because of the rain.
The rain was part of a system moving ahead of the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole, which dissipated over the Straits of Florida on Wednesday. Much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast were starting to move into a drought after the dry summer, and the fall storm provided several inches of much-needed rain.
Crews throughout the northeast worked to pull fallen leaves from storm drains. Schools in North Carolina were closed and some farther north planned to cancel classes today so students wouldn’t have to travel on flooded roads. Baltimore Gas and Electric said approximately 40,000 of its Maryland customers have lost power.
Forecasters expected heavy winds to spread up the coast, possibly toppling trees and power lines made unstable by the saturated ground.
The winds also were churning up big waves that were eating away at a “living shoreline” of rocks, sand and grasses built this year on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, Bob Gilbert said from his waterfront home in Churchton, about 10 miles south of Annapolis.
“There’s not a boat in sight,” Gilbert said. “The waves are really choppy and nasty-looking.”
The rain caused several other wrecks Thursday, including a crash between two transit buses in Maryland that left 26 people hurt.
Storms have dropped a third of the rain Wilmington, N.C., usually gets all year in just five days. The 21 inches collected since Sunday was the highest five-day total in nearly 140 years of records.