5
By Larry O'Dell, Associated Press, 8/31/2004 10:26
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) An area of about 20 blocks of downtown Richmond was roped off and was being condemned Tuesday after the remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston flooded the city and other parts of central Virginia with a foot or more of rain. At least three people were killed.
The condemned area included most of the city's historic and low-lying Shockoe Bottom area, known for its bars and restaurants.
Elsewhere, 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.
A brick building of at least two stories had collapsed in the Shockoe Bottom area, and several dozen buildings had extensive water damage after the rain that fell Monday afternoon and evening flooded the area as much as 10 feet deep, Mayor Rudolph McCollum said Tuesday. In places, rushing water floated cars and trucks and smashed them into buildings.
City officials said the damage would easily be in the millions of dollars but said it was too early to provide an estimate.
''It's like something you've never seen before,'' said City Manager Calvin D. Jamison.
Gov. Mark R. Warner declared a state of emergency, making state resources available and putting the National Guard on standby.
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.
Gaston surprised meteorologists, who had expected the storm to move through more quickly as it came north from the Carolinas and predicted no more than four inches of rain. Downtown Richmond got up to 12 inches of rain Monday afternoon and evening and suburban King William County measured 14, the National Weather Service said.
The flooding marooned some people in Shockoe Bottom.
''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.''
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.
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.''
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.
Associated Press writers Justin Bergman and Terri Nelson in Richmond contributed to this report.
From Boston.com
Images from Richmond Times-Dispatch
