Flooding

TAYLOR, Mo. -- The Mississippi River has spilled out as wide as 16 miles across the low plains of Illinois and Missouri, a chocolate-colored inland sea so vast that it will leave behind a temporary ribbon of swamps even after it recedes, altering human, wildlife and plant habitats for months.Lingering floodwaters along the Mississippi's 583-mile upper branch likely will delay a speedy recovery and wreak havoc on everything from the reclamation of sunken river towns to the survival of wild grasses, say scientists and engineers girding for the impact.

PORT DEPOSIT - Waters of the rain-swollen Susquehanna River cascaded through floodgates opened yesterday in the Conowingo Dam, but many residents of this downstream town were not about to budge - despite city officials declaring a state of emergency and "strongly" recommending an evacuation. Some said they couldn't bear to leave behind pets. Others said they wanted to ride out the rising waters with friends, cranking heavy-metal tunes and downing cans of beer. Still others said they had survived past floods, including the devastation that followed what was left of Hurricane Agnes in 1972, and that they would make it through the remnants of Hurricane Ivan.

Perry Poist glanced at the sky, then at the front of his home. A broad brown line about waist-high stretched across the vinyl siding and his front door -- a painful reminder of last weekend's flooding."

Ron Landy of Woodbine informed me about an incident where he had water flood over his basement door threshold, and he's worried that it will recur even though the builder made improvements to the drain. He wrote: "I recently moved into a new home with an areaway - a stairwell leading to a below-ground basement. The bottom of the well has a drain that leads directly to the sump pump. ... During a serious storm in early July, we had 5 inches [of water] in one hour, the drain was overwhelmed, and water seeped under the door to the stairwell and damaged the carpet in the finished basement.

Rain fell so fast during Wednesday's storms - what a forecaster called a "monumental pace" - that flooding was inevitable. But history made the problem much worse in the neighborhoods along the Jones Falls in Baltimore. Development of mills, small shops and houses along the stream in the 18th and 19th centuries set the stage for flash flooding because the paved roads and parking lots that came later leave little space for quick-moving storm water to seep into the earth. Many areas developed in the 20th century have set aside easements in such flood plains.

The Sykesville Planning and Zoning Commission meeting last night started with another shouting match between a Hawk Ridge Farm resident and the builder, Jeff Powers, over flooding problems.George and Rose Ann Fischer of CaraCara Court again brought their seven months of water and flooding problems to the commission."I've been flooded approximately eight times," George Fischer said. "Two weeks ago, I blocked up two basement windows to keep the water from coming in. This past Friday, water built up behind the silt fence behind my house and the silt fence collapsed, so the water is coming off that into my yard."

The federal government's verdict on the future of New Orleans is in: The city is much safer than before Hurricane Katrina but faces a 1-in-100 chance each year of significant flooding. Since Hurricane Katrina struck nearly two years ago, killing 1,293 and causing an estimated $100 billion in damage, the Army Corps of Engineers has overseen a vast construction program to reinforce levees, repair damage and upgrade pumping stations. The effort has improved the city's prospects significantly but has not eliminated the huge risks.

Wind and waves from the powerful nor'easter that has pummeled the Mid- Atlantic coast since Wednesday have eaten away as much as a quarter of Ocean City's dune line. The sand will have to be replaced, city officials said, but the man-made storm barrier did its job. Other than street flooding and minor wind damage, the resort appears to have weathered the worst of the storm. "There were no instances of ocean water anywhere west of the dune line, and no damage that we can see from the ocean to any property along the oceanfront," said Mayor Rick Meehan.

People living or sheltering far from the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast might not have escaped Rita's wrath yet. Weather forecasters say they expect the storm to stall over the region for several days with torrential rains. The National Hurricane Center warned that accumulations of 25 inches are possible across eastern Texas and western Louisiana. "This could be half a year's worth of rain in a couple of days," said Rick Smith, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Fort Worth. "It's something we're going to be watching very closely."

Baltimore Convention Center officials offered little explanation why an exhibit hall flooded yesterday afternoon, forcing about 500 visitors and exhibitors to flee brackish water spreading across the floor. Security guards placed chains and padlocks around the doors of the African-American Art Expo after water covered the floor and artists piled their paintings and posters on tables to protect them from the inch-deep water. Convention Center staff refused to answer questions about the flooding.