Flooding

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.

Huainan, China -- For days, the rain had come in warm, drenching sheets. It swelled the Huai River and turned the heavy, clay soil along its watershed into a sticky muck that sucked the shoes off people's feet. Zheng Zhaojun, who has lived here all of his 32 years, knew the danger the river posed. So when the Communist Party secretary for his village came calling, Zheng moved quickly. "They told us the water is rising fast, go," Zheng recalled as he stood in the doorway of the blue canvas tent that has been his family's temporary home for nearly two weeks.

Remnants of Hurricane Jeanne swirled through Maryland yesterday -- the winds greatly diminished, but clouds packing enough moisture to drop as much as 5 inches of rain in parts of metropolitan Baltimore. The storm flooded roads, snarled traffic with rain-related accidents and created a chaotic evening commute. But unlike the recently departed Ivan and a visit earlier this month from what was left of Frances -- and far removed from the disasters wreaked on Florida by four September hurricanes -- Tropical Depression Jeanne was largely a soggy inconvenience here.

A destructive line of storms packing heavy rains and high winds drenched much of Central Maryland yesterday, flooding roadways and cutting off power to thousands of homes. With gusts up to 45 mph and a rainfall rate as heavy as 5 inches per hour in some areas, the storm sent streams surging over banks and overtaxed urban drainage systems with water that flooded heavily traveled roadways - with up to 4 feet of standing water at one intersection - during the evening rush. No serious injuries were reported, but several people were rescued from vehicles caught in high waters, prompting authorities to close impassable roads.

A series of slow-moving thunderstorms dumped several inches of rain today on scattered sections of Maryland south and north of Baltimore, causing some road flooding and power outages.The rainfall -- and a promise of more of the same through tomorrow -- also brought a respite from the drought that for two months has had Maryland farmers concerned about their crops. State agriculture officials were hopeful the rain would stay around long enough to have a real impact.The heaviest rains skirted Baltimore-Washington International Airport, where barely 0.13 inches was recorded through 7 a.m. But in Annapolis, about 1.62 inches fell by this afternoon.

The Baltimore area continued mopping up yesterday from the torrential rains that drenched the region Thursday, flooding cars and basements, downing trees and power lines and contributing to a traffic accident that police said killed a 16-year-old boy.Scott Sickel, of the 2900 block of Georgia Ave., Baltimore County, was walking in the curb lane of the 700 block of Patapsco Ave. about 11 p.m. Thursday to avoid standing water on the sidewalk when he was...

The soggy and still-potent remnants of Hurricane Frances passed through Maryland yesterday, touching off what witnesses said looked like a tornado in Charles County and flooding streambeds in Allegany and Washington counties. The storm - classified as a tropical depression by the time it moved into the southern edge of the state late Tuesday - prompted forecasters to declare a tornado watch for much of Maryland after it had spawned several twisters in harder-hit North Carolina, said John Darnley, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sterling, Va. A watch indicates that conditions that are favorable for severe weather, and a warning indicates that it is likely or imminent.