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Gaston's Rain Sparks Emergency in Virginia

Posted on: Tuesday, 31 August 2004, 06:00 CDT

RICHMOND, Va. - A state of emergency was declared as Tropical Storm Gaston poured nearly a foot of rain on central Virginia, flooding streets with several feet of rushing water that floated cars and trucks and smashed them into buildings. At least three people were killed.

At the same time, Hurricane Frances grew to a Category 4 storm with 135 mph wind Tuesday as it headed past Puerto Rico on a course that could bring it ashore in hard-hit Florida or somewhere else in the Southeast this weekend, the National Hurricane Center said.

Gaston surprised forecasters who had expected the storm to move through more quickly as it came north from the Carolinas. The deluge turned Richmond streets into rivers and trapped people in buildings.

"It looks like rapids outside our building," said Nick Baughan, who was stranded with about 20 other people on the second floor of the Bottoms Up pizza restaurant. "All of our cars have floated away."

The Virginia emergency declaration made state resources available and put the National Guard on standby for possible duty. Gov. Mark R. Warner was scheduled Tuesday to tour Richmond, which was inundated with more than 11 inches of rain in 10 hours Monday afternoon and evening.

Richmond police spokeswoman Cynthia Price confirmed Tuesday that two people died in a creek in eastern Richmond. In nearby Chesterfield County, rescuers pulled a woman's body from a submerged car early Tuesday, county public affairs officer Dave Goode said. He said county police and firefighters rescued about 40 people during the night.

"It's been a disaster of major proportions." Mayor Rudy McCollum said Tuesday on CBS' "The Early Show." He said the city expected only 2 to 3 inches of rain.

Nearly 66,000 customers of Dominion Virginia Power still had no electricity Tuesday, mostly in the Richmond area. Many roads were still closed by high water.

Matthew Marsili was trying to drive home through the flooded streets Monday evening when "all of this water came rushing down the hill all at once. ... It half-submerged a bus in the middle of the intersection that was filled with people and cars started floating down the road."

The storm ensured that this would be the wettest summer on record in some localities. Keith Lynch, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service said that Richmond had received 30.34 inches of rain since June 1, breaking the June-through-August record of 27.57 inches recorded in 1969.

With Gaston centered over the Atlantic early Tuesday, about 75 miles south-southeast of Atlantic City, N.J., emergency officials and meteorologists were looking toward the western Atlantic, where Hurricane Frances was roaring along a path paralleling Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, the island holding Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Hurricane forecasters said the course of Frances remained too difficult to determine, since it was at least five days from the U.S. mainland. Forecasts put Frances anywhere from Cuba to the Carolina coast by the end of the week, but the main track would send it across the Florida peninsula, crossing the devastating path Charley cut across the state less than three weeks ago.

With rain from Hurricanes Alex and Charley and the remnants of Bonnie - all during August - rainfall in parts of the Southeast has been several inches above normal for the month.

"If you throw another hurricane into the mix, there could be a lot of problems," said Mike Strickler, a National Weather Service forecaster in Raleigh, N.C.

At 8 a.m. EDT, Frances was centered about 200 miles east-northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico and was moving west at about 15 mph. A hurricane watch was in effect for the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos islands.

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Associated Press writers Justin Bergman and Terri Nelson in Richmond contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

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