Northeast Hit by Worst Floods in 100 Years

Updated at 6:49 p.m. ET

Flooding on a scale rarely seen in New England forced hundreds of people from their homes and businesses Wednesday, overwhelmed sewage systems and isolated communities as it washed out bridges and rippled across thoroughfares from Maine to Connecticut.

Three days of record-breaking rains tapered to a drizzle, then stopped before the waters in hard-hit Rhode Island finally crested. But authorities across New England warned that the flooding - far worse than an indundation two weeks ago in the same areas - could linger for days.

Rhode Island experienced its worst flooding in more than 100 years. The swollen Pawtuxet River threatened to collapse a bridge in the town of Coventry, sending residents of a neighborhood fleeing. A stretch of the main East Coast highway, Interstate 95, shut down, and Amtrak suspended some trains on its busy Northeast lines.

"We're definitely in unprecedented territory," Cranston, R.I., Mayor Allan Fung told CBS' "The Early Show" Wednesday.

Fung said several city blocks were under water and frustration was growing among residents. "We're in very difficult times," Fung said.

During the big nor'easter two weeks ago, the Pawtuxet River broke a record by rising to nearly 15 feet. After three days of rain and a month of record rainfall, the Pawtuxet River crested Wednesday at 20.8 feet, nearly 12 feet above flood level, CBS News Correspondent Whit Johnson reports from West Warwick, R.I.

"What we're looking at now is the worst storm we've seen in a hundred years," Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian told the "CBS Evening News." "It's hard to always prepare for a hundred year storm."

Michelle Samtagata looked out off her deck Wednesday and found a lake, but the real disaster was inside, where water completely flooded the basement, ruining furniture, destroying photographs and knocking out the heat, Johnson reports.

"My kids are asking me if the house is gone forever," Samtagata said, adding that she's leaving town until the water recedes.

Every resident of Rhode Island, a state of about 1 million, was asked to conserve water and electricity because of flooded sewage systems and electrical substations. Rising waters either stranded hundreds of people or sent them to shelters. Many of those who stayed behind appeared shell-shocked, still recovering from floods two weeks ago caused by as much as 10 inches of rain.

Angelo Padula Jr.'s auto restoration shop in West Warwick, R.I., Padula and Son Used Auto, stood in 10 feet of water from the Pawtuxet River - after 100 years in business, its likely death knell, Padula said.

"I think we're all done," he said. "If the federal government doesn't give us disaster money, I don't think we can ever come back from this. You're talking millions and millions of dollars in these businesses. Now I know how the people in New Orleans felt."

In Coventry, police Col. Ronald Da Silva said that the abutments on a two-lane bridge over the Pawtuxet River had washed out and that the bridge was predicted to collapse. A neighborhood downstream evacuated as a precaution.

Town Manager Tom Hoover said the river had already eaten into part of a building and threatened to collapse more of it.

Monica Bourgeois, 45, cried Wednesday morning as she stood outside her home in Cranston, where a sewer pump station gave out and hundreds of residents had evacuated by early Wednesday. The Pawtuxet River had turned her lawn into a lake and flooded her basement with six feet of still-rising water.

"It's over the furnace. We're afraid it's going to hit the electrical panel. It's so awful. The whole basement is destroyed. The whole basement is under water," she said.

"I have absolutely no idea how we're going to pay for this. I'm extremely, extremely worried. Do you know how much a new furnace costs? We're just praying to God for some help."

Similar concerns plagued residents throughout New England. A pond dam in Porter, Maine, let loose Tuesday morning, sending a torrent of water down country roads but injuring no one. Water covered roads in New Hampshire.

Stonington, Conn., a coastal town on a peninsula, was largely cut off as two of its three bridges went out. A bridge also gave out in Freetown, Mass., isolating about 1,000 residents.

The flooding caps a month that set rainfall records across the region. Boston measured nearly 14 inches for March, breaking the previous record for the month, set in 1953. New Jersey, New York City and Portland, Maine, surpassed similar records. Providence registered its rainiest month on record, period, with a total of more than 15 inches of rain in March.

"None of us alive have seen the flooding that we are experiencing now or going to experience," Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri said. "This is unprecedented in our state's history."

President Obama issued an emergency declaration late Tuesday for Rhode Island, ordering federal aid for disaster relief and authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate relief efforts.

But the havoc was spread throughout the region, as National Guard troops went into action in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Non-essential state workers in Rhode Island were given the day off, and state officials asked schools and private businesses to consider closing, as well.

Officials in water-weary Warwick, R.I., where a water and sewage treatment plant failed, asked residents not to launder clothes or flush toilets. The state also asked people to stay off highways and local roads.

Heavy rains in Connecticut caused the earth under a Middletown apartment complex parking lot to give way, leaving two buildings teetering over the ravine of a river. Residents were taken to an emergency shelter at a high school.

Authorities also evacuated 50 units at a condominium complex in Jewett City in eastern Connecticut because a sewage treatment plant next door was under at least 4 feet of water. Floodwaters washed out a two-lane highway bridge at Groton.

In Massachusetts, the biggest concerns were in the southeastern part of the state, where a highway was closed, said state Emergency Management Agency spokesman Scott MacLeod. A bridge gave out in Freetown, isolating about 1,000 residents, he said.

North of Boston, Peabody District Court was closed Wednesday because flooding in the downtown area made it inaccessible. Some residents there evacuated.

Demetri Skalkos, co-owner of McNamara's liquor store, said about three feet of water stood in the basement. He said he was worried about losing business over the traditionally busy Easter period.

"This is the Holy Week," he said. "... If we don't do business now, when are we going to do business?"

Heavy rains buckled a road in Fall River, near the Rhode Island border.

Traffic snarled as motorists sought detours around I-95, the main link between New York and Boston. Amtrak suspended its Acela Express and regular Northeast Regional service in the area.

Glen Kerkian, a resident of Charlestown, R.I., and president of the University of Rhode Island Foundation, heard the announcement as he waited in New York's Penn Station for his train to board - but was trying not to worry.

"There are people who have had serious hardship," he said. "You're seeing water in places you've never seen before - on the normal route to work, going through a half-dozen rapids."

Fung told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Wednesday that the city was facing "dire circumstances." Authorities there said that the Pawtuxet River flooding was unprecedented and that they didn't know what damage to expect.

One resident hung a sign: "FEMA + State + City of Cranston. Buy our houses."

"Right now it's bad and getting worse," said Brian Dupont, a real estate broker who owns two homes on the street. He feared the dozens of sandbags protecting the homes would offer minimal protection.

Standing water pooled on or rushed across roads in the region, making driving treacherous and forcing closures. Adjutant General Robert Bray, the commander of the Rhode Island National Guard, said the area south of Providence was like a "maze" with drivers repeatedly getting stuck.

In Maine, a dam in Porter let loose Tuesday morning, sending a torrent of water down country roads. No evacuations or injuries were reported.