10 Dead In East Coast Floods

(CBS/AP)  Prolonged, heavy rain caused flooding from North Carolina to Maine over the weekend, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate, knocking out electricity, weakening dams and making roads impassable.

At least 10 people died in flooding or in rain-related crashes, including two young people killed in New Hampshire when a car apparently drove off a washed-out bridge into flood waters, officials said. At least one other person was seen being swept away in a swift-flowing river.

Gov. John Lynch returned from Europe to take charge of relief efforts in New Hampshire. He declared a state of emergency and called in 500 National Guard members for assistance.

"This is the worst damage they've seen from flooding in 25 years in New Hampshire," the governor said Sunday night.

CBS' Dan Ray out of Boston reports for The Early Show that roughly 1,000 people were evacuated from Southwest New Hampshire, but the floodwater there has already receded dramatically — as much as 30 or 40 percent in areas.

But with rain in the forecast for the next several days, the National Weather Service warned that dams could fail or overflow. A surge over Warren Lake dam in Alstead, N.H., sent a 4- or 5-foot wall of water downstream during the weekend, damaging at least a half dozen bridges and washing away several homes.

The two New Hampshire residents who died in the car were identified as Steven Day, of Unity, and Ashley Gate, of Claremont, both 20, state police said.

The body of an unidentified man was spotted from the air in a cornfield near a river in Langton and his death appeared to be flood-related, authorities said. And a kayaker on New Hampshire's North Branch River was feared dead after he was washed away while clinging to a tree as rescue workers tried to reach him.

In Hoosick Falls, N.Y., 6-year-old Michael Hackett slipped into the rain-swollen Hoosick River on Sunday. His mother's boyfriend, 39-year-old Robert Scanlon, dove in to save him, and witnesses watched helplessly as the two bobbed in the swift-moving rapids before being swept under a bridge and disappearing. Their bodies were found Monday morning.

In Pennsylvania, state police said Tiffany Wieand, 19, of Milford Township died Saturday when she tried to drive through a flooded roadway, while in New Jersey, 2-year-old Shane Belluardo of Tobyhanna, Pa., died from head injuries Saturday after his parents' car went out of control on a highway in Knowlton. Rain was also cited as a factor in traffic accidents over the weekend that killed three people in Maine.

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