Rain-Swollen Rivers Jump Banks in East and Midwest : Flooding: In West Virginia, water laps at roofs and sinks roads, fields and a paddle boat. Icy streets cause deaths in New York, Pennsylvania.
PARKERSBURG, W. Va. — An Ohio River swollen with rain and melted snow surged beyond its banks Saturday, unleashing floods that covered some homes up to their roofs and sank a 50-foot boat as it rested in a back yard.
Floods also battered Pennsylvania, where the Monongahela River threatened 100 homes, and Indiana, where one river fork rose more than five feet above flood stage, officials said.
In Parkersburg, the Ohio River was 2 1/2 feet above flood stage and was expected to crest today at five feet above flood stage. About 200 homes were flooded along the Little Kanawha River, which flows into the Ohio. No injuries were reported.
The water closed roads, swallowed a baseball field and a volleyball court and forced about 200 families to leave their homes, said Ken Riffle, a spokesman for the Wood County Office of Emergency Services.
April Pearson had to enter her flooded split-level home through a third-floor window. She said her family’s 50-foot stern-wheeler sank in the back yard, even though it was docked on land.
“The water came up so fast it just sank her,†Pearson said. “She couldn’t get her buoyancy.â€
The Williamstown Bridge, which connects Williamstown and Marietta, Ohio, was closed because water had covered the Ohio side.
The Hocking River flooded the southern Ohio town of Chauncey, forcing the evacuation of about 55 people and washing out the two state routes that lead into the town, officials said.
Bridges in Indiana, including a few that date back to the early 1900s, were threatened by ice chunks from last week’s cold snap that jammed against pilings along the surging White River.
“The ice jam was solid, bank to bank, and I could feel movement on the bridge as the ice chunks hit the piers and the ice breakers,†said Jackson County Commissioner Steve Gill, who monitored ice flow near the Rockford Bridge.
In south-central Indiana, the east fork of the White River crested 5 1/2 feet over flood stage but did not threaten the nearby town of Seymour.
In Pennsylvania, the Monongahela rose 2 1/2 feet above flood stage Saturday near Carol Bowers’ mobile home in the Pittsburgh suburb of West Elizabeth.
The home was not damaged, but the timing couldn’t have been worse--Bowers had put the home up for sale that day.
“I don’t think I could give it away,†she said. “I could advertise it as a mobile home-slash-houseboat that you can fish out of from your door.â€
Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, the problem was ice that clogged waterways throughout the state and contributed to one death. A woman died when her car skidded on an icy bridge, ran up over a snowbank and plunged into the Conestoga River.
In Upstate New York, one of three motorists who rushed to assist a woman whose car had spun into a snowbank was struck and killed by another spinning car.
There was one place that did not have enough ice: Saranac Lake, N.Y., which was short of materials to build the traditional ice palace for its annual carnival. Officials blamed the weather, which layered Lake Flower with snow and produced slush instead of ice.
“You can’t fight Mother Nature,†said carnival chairman Don Duso.
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