Storm floods Northeast, cuts power to 300,000
Story Highlights• NEW: Nearly 300,000 without power from Maryland to Maine
• Sunday to Monday rain total: 7.81 inches in Central Park
• N.J., W.V. declare states of emergency amid floods, rain, wind
• Boston Marathon forecast: 30-mph wind, temps in 30s
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NEW YORK (AP) -- People were evacuated from flooded homes Monday and hundreds of thousands had no electricity as a fierce nor'easter drenched the Northeast with record rainfall.
Residents in at least one New York City neighborhood paddled through streets in boats. And in suburban Mamaroneck, Nicholas Staropoli said a truck near his home "actually floated up on the riverbank."
Rain was still falling Monday morning in the New York area and New England after it began early Sunday along the East Coast from Florida to New England. The National Guard was sent to help with rescue and evacuation efforts in the suburbs north of New York City. (Watch how runners plan to join the Boston Marathon despite the storm )
Firefighters plucked Kathleen Reale and her twin boys from their window in suburban Mamaroneck using a front-end-loader. Water reached up to her knees in her garage and basement and her family was evacuated to a shelter.
"I mean everything will be ruined," she said Monday. "Everything will be gone. It's unbelievable."
The shelter was filled to capacity Monday morning with about 300 people sleeping on cots. Mamaroneck, in Westchester County, called for voluntary evacuations of areas on Long Island Sound.
Record rainfall reported
The rain totaled 7.81 inches in Central Park from early Sunday to Monday morning, the National Weather Service said. The previous record in the park for April 15 was just 1.8 inches, set in 1906. (Watch the New York storm surge demonstrate the nor'easter's dangers )
Snow fell in inland areas, including 17 inches in Vermont, with flakes still falling Monday across sections of Pennsylvania, upstate New York and Maine.
Nearly 300,000 homes and businesses had lost power from Maryland to Maine.
In Westchester County, north of New York City, all public schools were closed Monday. Cars were stalled in water on numerous roads and several major highways were closed at times by flooding.
New Jersey also had school closings, highways blocked by water and dozens of residents being evacuated from homes, authorities said. (Watch I-Report video of Hoboken, New Jersey, residents escaping floodwaters )
The governors of Maine, West Virginia and New Jersey declared states of emergency. The governors of New Jersey and Connecticut urged residents to stay home from work and off the roads. New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer deployed 3,200 members of the National Guard to areas where flooding was possible.
Crews scramble to save dam
Hundreds of people had been evacuated from their homes in southern West Virginia as crews worked to pump water from a private lake near Hamlin to keep an unstable earthen dam from collapsing.
If the dam breaks, millions of gallons of water could pour into Hamlin, Mayor Brian Barrett said Monday. "We're being told it could be eight or nine feet of water," Barrett told the Herald-Dispatch of Huntington.
Coastal residents were urged to evacuate in parts of Maine, and a nursing home in Portland was evacuated as a precaution, state officials said. In southeastern New Hampshire, parts of downtown Newmarket were evacuated because of flooding.
Flights were delayed Monday at the New York area's three major airports, where airlines canceled more than 500 flights Sunday as wind gusted to 48 mph, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Dozens more flights were canceled in Philadelphia, Boston and elsewhere in New England. (Check FAA flight delay information)
"We came up to see the city," said Amby Lewis, the leader of a girl scout troop from North Carolina who was stranded at LaGuardia airport. "And the lovely weather rolled in and we've been stuck ever since."
The storm about 20,000 runners in Monday's Boston Marathon something to worry about besides Heartbreak Hill as the course was doused with several inches of rain driven by wind gusting to more than 30 mph.
"When you live in the Northeast, you've got to respect this kind of weather," said marathoner Rob Comitz, 31, from Harleysville, Pennsylvania.
Power outages affected more than 10,000 households and businesses in the New York area and more than 55,000 customers elsewhere in the state, more than 30,000 in Maryland, 50,000 in Pennsylvania, more than 43,000 across Connecticut, at least 46,000 in New Hampshire, 17,000 in Maine, 25,000 in Vermont and 12,000 in Massachusetts, utility officials said.
At least three tornadoes touched down Sunday in South Carolina. One cut a 14-mile-long, 300-yard-wide swath through Sumter County in the central part of the state, killing a woman and seriously injuring four other people.
One person was killed by a tornado in South Carolina, and two died in car accidents -- one in upstate New York and one in Connecticut. The storm rattled the Gulf states Friday and Saturday with violent thunderstorms after taking Texas with at least two tornadoes, and it was blamed for five deaths in Texas and Kansas
