Allison leaves Philly suburbs waterlogged

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- The suburbs north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were deluged on Sunday by rising floodwaters, courtesy of what was left of a tropical storm that dumped 30 inches of rain on Houston, Texas, last week.

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The rains have not stopped since delivering nearly 9 inches of water along the Bucks-Montgomery county line in about two hours Saturday night.

"When it falls that fast, you're going to have flooding," Bill Goodman, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Mount Holly, New Jersey, told the Bucks County Courier Times.

The Neshaminy Creek in Bucks County crested at nearly 17 feet -- almost twice its flood stage -- Sunday morning at Langhorne, prompting emergency management officials to prepare for problems in Bensalem and Middletown townships, where the creek empties into the Delaware River.

By midmorning, the creek was at 16.1 feet and falling, still well over its flood stage of 9 feet.

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But the weather service lifted a flash-food watch for the Pennsylvania counties on Sunday morning, leaving in place a watch posted for two New Jersey counties across the river until midafternoon.

Most rain 'since Hurricane Floyd'

The rains and attending floods accompanied the remains of Tropical Storm Allison on a slow journey up the East Coast after stalling for several days over Houston. State damage assessment teams were working in parts of Philadelphia and four surrounding counties Sunday morning.

Carl Babinski, a meteorologist with AccuWeather, told the Bucks County newspaper that the weekend rainfall was "the single biggest rainfall event that we've seen around here since Hurricane Floyd."

Floyd rammed ashore in North Carolina in September 1999. The massive storm swept up the East Coast bringing torrential rains and devastating floods, killing 56 people and causing an estimated $3 billion to $6 billion in damage.

Saturday's flooding forced the evacuation of at least two apartment complexes in Montgomery County and closed a segment of the Pennsylvania Turnpike (Interstate 276) between Willow Grove and Norristown.

The road was reopened Sunday morning, but a major exit -- the Fort Washington exit onto Route 309 -- remained closed.

Jim Kelly, the county's director of emergency preparedness, said that about 350 people were evacuated from the Village Green apartments in Upper Moreland Township when floodwaters kept firefighters away from a blaze that destroyed one building and badly damaged two others.

Another 30 to 40 residents were evacuated from another complex because of the flooding, Kelly said.

Electricity outages

Terry Williamson, director of communications for PECO Energy in Philadelphia, said that at least 55,000 customers were without power overnight in Bucks and Montgomery counties, along with Delaware and Chester counties to the south and east of Philadelphia.

By early Sunday afternoon, 2,500 of those customers were still waiting for power to be restored. Flooded streets impeded the progress of some of the rescue workers, Williamson said, but PECO expected to have power fully restored by noon.