CNN - Some head home as U.S. flooding eases

August 05, 2024

CNN - Some head home as U.S. flooding eases - Jan. 21, 1996

But thousands more evacuated overnight

January 21, 1996
Web posted at: 12:00 p.m. EST

(CNN) -- Thousands of people were returning to their water-logged homes in the Northeast Sunday, as some upstream flood waters began receding. They faced muddy cleanups and the possibility of no heat.

On Sunday, President Clinton declared Pennsylvania a disaster area, making it eligible for federal funds. Just hours earlier, Pennsylvania's governor had accused the federal government of being slow to respond.

Thousands more residents were ordered evacuated overnight from West Virginia to New York because of melting snow, ice jams and heavy rain. The upper Plains states continued to have subzero temperatures, and nearly three dozen deaths were blamed on the severe weather.

Hundreds of roads, bridges and some water and sewer plants were closed by high water.

About 2,000 residents of Trenton, New Jersey, had to leave their homes as the Delaware River remained above flood stage. But tens of thousands of evacuated residents of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, were allowed to return late Saturday after the Susquehanna River began to recede.

Pennsylvania troubles

"In Wilkes-Barre, (the Susquehanna River) has already crested, but in places downstream the cresting is expected Sunday morning," said meteorologist Jim Green in State College, Pennsylvania. The Wilkes-Barre evacuation lasted about 10 hours, ending Saturday night when the Susquehanna crested about one and one-half feet below flood stage

"Great human cost"

-- Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge ( 289K AIFF sound or 289K WAV sound)

Eight thousand people were forced to evacuate in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's state capital, where the Susquehanna River appeared to have crested before dawn Sunday. ( 646K QuickTime movie) Gov. Tom Ridge's family fled the governor's mansion when water surrounded the home.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Mark Schweiker said Sunday the damage from snow and flooding was widespread. ( 281K AIFF sound or 281K WAV sound)

Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, water submerged Pittsburgh's Point State Park, the downtown site where the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers join to form the Ohio. Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. shut down two blast furnaces and other plants in the region because of flooding. At Leetsdale, along the Ohio just northwest of Pittsburgh, a furnace at a copper factory exploded when it was hit by the cold water, spraying molten metal throughout the evacuated plant.

West Virginia

Barges and pleasure boats broke from their moorings and drifted on the Ohio River and its upper tributaries. The Ohio River town of New Martinsville, West Virginia, was partly under water Sunday. forcing 90 percent of the town's residents to be evacuated, said George Heinzman, Wetzel County emergency services transportation officer. He said he and his co-workers were among those temporarily trapped by high water. But "you're so busy on the phone, you don't notice it."

Authorities urged 7,500 people to leave Wheeling Island, a low-lying urban enclave linked by a bridge to Wheeling, West Virginia. There, the Ohio was expected to crest 12 feet above flood stage Sunday. West Virginia Gov. Gaston Caperton declared a state of emergency in 29 counties and sent National Guardsmen to help evacuate residents in several areas.

About 400 families were evacuated overnight from Port Jervis, New York, as the Delaware and Neversink rivers overflowed their banks near the point where New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania meet, 60 miles north and northwest of New York City. Some 1,500 people were evacuated elsewhere in upstate New York along the Conhocton and Canisteo rivers. In Warren County, New Jersey, hundreds of people were evacuated from along the Delaware River after an ice dam broke, releasing an 8-foot-high surge of water, authorities said.

In Trenton, the recently renovated New Jersey Statehouse annex and its parking garage were flooded.

Deadly weather

Among the casualties from the storm were five members of a family who died when a roadway collapsed in Tompkins, New York, about 120 miles northwest of New York City. The deaths occurred Friday night after four cars tumbled into a rain-swollen reservoir. A sixth person, not related to the family, remained missing late Saturday. Three other people were rescued. A woman died in Bedford County in south-central Pennsylvania, when the truck she was driving was swept away.

The floods resulted from a series of storms that have battered the eastern United States from New Orleans to Portland, Maine, in the past two weeks. Blizzards and sub-freezing temperatures, ice storms, wind and heavy rains have closed schools and highways, disrupted air travel and caused extensive damage. Sharply colder weather in the East on Saturday helped prevent more snow from melting, which would have worsened the flooding.

In northern Minnesota, warmer weather was expected to replace the bitter cold that plunged the thermometer to 57 below zero on Saturday. Sunday's high for the northern part of the state was only expected to reach about 10 degrees. International Falls, Minnesota, which prides itself on its frigid weather, postponed some of its weekend Icebox Days festival events because of the cold.

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Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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