Eastern floods scatter residents as worst awaits

[defendandprotect]

Eastern floods scatter residents as worst awaits

By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press Writer Eric Tucker, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 2 mins ago
CRANSTON, R.I. – Flooding on a scale rarely seen in New England forced hundreds of residents from their homes Wednesday, overwhelmed sewage systems and snarled traffic as major East Coast routes washed out or transformed into a soaked labyrinth of detours and closures.

As three days of record-breaking rains tapered to a drizzle, forecasters warned the worst of widespread flooding from Maine to Connecticut was still ahead as rivers and streams had yet to crest — for the second time in a month.

In Rhode Island, which bore the brunt of the storm, residents were experiencing the worst flooding in more than 100 years. Stretches of Interstate 95, the main route linking Boston to New York, were closed and could remain so for days.

Every resident of Rhode Island, a state of about 1 million, was asked to conserve water and electricity because of flooded sewage systems and electrical substations. Rising waters either stranded hundreds of people or sent them to shelters. Many of those who stayed behind appeared shell-shocked, still recovering from floods two weeks ago caused by as much as 10 inches of rain.

Monica Bourgeois, 45, cried Wednesday morning as she stood outside her home in Cranston, where a sewer pump station gave out and hundreds of residents had evacuated by early Wednesday. The Pawtuxet River had turned her lawn into a lake and flooded her basement with six feet of still-rising water.

"It's over the furnace. We're afraid it's going to hit the electrical panel. It's so awful. The whole basement is destroyed. The whole basement is under water," she said.

"I have absolutely no idea how we're going to pay for this. I'm extremely, extremely worried. Do you know how much a new furnace costs? We're just praying to God for some help."

The flooding caps a month that set rainfall records across the region. Boston measured nearly 14 inches for March, breaking the previous record for the month, set in 1953. New Jersey, New York City and Portland, Maine, surpassed similar records. Providence registered its rainiest month on record, period, with a total of more than 15 inches of rain in March.

"None of us alive have seen the flooding that we are experiencing now or going to experience," Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri said. "This is unprecedented in our state's history."

President Barack Obama issued an emergency declaration late Tuesday for Rhode Island, ordering federal aid for disaster relief and authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate relief efforts.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100331/ap_on_bi_ge/us_severe_weather


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Needless to say, this is Global Warming, but I see no mention of it in the article.

Floods/droughts will increase and so will the disasters.

And people continue to sit in front of their TV's waiting for the news readers to

tell them something!

[glinda]

1. Maybe some of the vacant real estate on higher ground will sell.

[defendandprotect]

2. kick --

[cali]

3. There's a reason that climate change isn't mentioned

it's because this particular event is no more direct evidence of global warming than a particularly cold temps over a series of days or weeks is evidence that there is no climate change.