No Letup In Waterlogged NE

Steady rain continued Wednesday in parts of the Northeast that could ill afford it.

Four people were known to be dead and at least three were missing in New Hampshire, where the forecast calls for another five to seven inches of rain over the next few days.

Flash flood advisories were posted in several western counties of New Jersey, where the Raritan River was expected to rise above flood stage. Other rain-swollen rivers and creeks were rising, too.

Remnants of Tropical Storm Tammy traveled up the East Coast and doused parts of New Jersey with more than 8 inches of rain Friday and Saturday. One to three more inches of rain were forecast for Wednesday. "The grounds are nearly saturated at this point," Gary Conte of the National Weather Service told The Record newspaper.

There was a flood watch in northern and eastern Connecticut, too.

One Alstead, N.H. woman was fished out of a stairwell inside half of her broken home, swept 150 feet off its foundation, reports

"It was bad timing, bad planning, and I don't think anyone really thought that culvert was going to blow," said Donna Winham.

Linda Pelow also was in her Alstead house alone when the floodwaters suddenly surrounded it.

"I grabbed the puppy and went up to the attic," she said. "It was like watching the tsunami come at me, because all of a sudden, here comes the mud."

Pelow said she did not expect to survive Sunday's floodwaters, but her house was left standing.

"I just prayed and prayed. I thought I was gone with it," she said. "I am totally the luckiest person still in Alstead."

Five miles of homes, power lines, roads and bridges in the town are gone, and the Cold River has carved out a new landscape.

A large drainage pipe upstream clogged, then burst, sending a wall of water five feet high crashing down on the town below. There was only one road out, and those who stayed were trapped.

The National Weather Service said more flooding could be on the way if rainfall exceeds the 1 to 2 inches predicted Wednesday into Thursday, and flood watches were announced for several locations.

"More rain could bring us back to square one," Fish and Game Lt. Todd Bogardus said. "We're doing everything we can to prepare (for it)."

The news came as rescue crews and police dogs continued searching rivers and woods for four people missing in New Hampshire after a weekend of heavy downpours that left at least 10 people dead from Maine to Pennsylvania.
The search for the missing is through treacherous, torn-up and unstable terrain, reports Christina Hager of CBS station WBZ-TV.

From Friday evening through Sunday, rainstorms dumped as much as 10 inches on New England and the mid-Atlantic states. In New Hampshire, the storm dropped 10.8 inches in Hinsdale and 10.5 inches in Keene.

Gov. John Lynch said the floods were the worst the state had experienced in a quarter-century, and he sought a federal disaster declaration. Teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency were expected to arrive later this week.

"We've never seen anything like this in New Hampshire, where roads are gone and the foundations on which the roads are built are gone, and bridges destroyed," said Lynch.

Help continued pouring into the small New Hampshire towns devastated by flooding.

Coordination, though, was made more difficult because all the equipment the Alstead police department had to deal with such a disaster — a ham radio, two-way radios, emergency generators and other equipment — was destroyed when the police station flooded almost to the ceiling.

"All of our police records, computers, weapons ... everything that was in there is gone. It's destroyed," Alstead police Chief Christopher Lyon said.

Among those still missing Tuesday were Sally and Tim Canfield, whose home was washed away by floodwaters. The Canfields had twice declined to evacuate.

"It's real sad, you know, it's just ... real good people, but that's the way he was, he was a stubborn guy, and he probably didn't think anything as bad was coming as it was. Nobody did," Matt Vanalstyne told WBZ.