Rain from Joaquin brings flash flood threat

Coast Guard officials in Miami said the rescue took place Thursday evening as the area experienced heavy weather caused by Hurricane Joaquin. Driving to work in drizzling rain, Bishop saw several high-water areas near train underpasses in town but didn’t have to alter his route. Rainfall totals topped 6 inches in Maine and 5 inches in New Hampshire, leading to flash flood warnings.

As South Carolina residents hunkered down, up to 500 residents were evacuated in coastal Brunswick County, North Carolina, that state’s governor said. The majority of the state ended up with 1 to 3 inches of rain – certainly good for the drought situation, but the runoff has exacerbated the coastal flooding issue.

South Carolina on Sunday struggled with flooding streets in the cities of Columbia and Charleston.

In an anticipation of that wet reality, Friday night football games were moved up a day over flooding concerns in South Carolina’s Lowcountry region, while others were postponed.

The Coast Guard was searching for a 735-foot cargo ship with 33 crew aboard after an emergency satellite message was received from the vessel saying it was caught in the path of Hurricane Joaquin.

“As of 8 a.m., Joaquin was a powerful Category 4…”

Gov. Chris Christie said the shore can rest a bit easier now that the hurricane is projected to head out to sea instead of striking the coast.

“Two Air Force C-130 Hurricane Hunter aircrews have also attempted to locate and reestablish communications with the El Faro but so far any attempts have been unsuccessful”.

Search efforts were expected to continue on Friday.

Long Island administrator Terrence Bootle-Bethel also reported severe flooding and coastal surges on parts of the island.

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Bruce Smith in Charleston, South Carolina; Mitch Weiss in Greenville, S.C.; Brock Vergakis in Norfolk, Virginia; David Dishneau in Ocean City, Maryland; Bruce Shipkowski in Trenton, New Jersey, and Julie Walker in New York.

While the state has not ordered evacuations, Haley said, “if you have ever flooded before, go ahead and get out of the way” because there will be massive flooding, she said. All models now keep the storm away from the U.S. East Coast and send it out to sea. The historic section of the city that is nestled between two rivers has been completely flooded.

Sandbags were everywhere especially along the main thoroughfares where the retail stores are.

There were no boarded-up windows. Rain pummeling parts of the East Coast showed little sign of slackening Saturday, with record-setting precipitation prolongi…

Even as far north as Waterbury, Vermont, Skip Flanders was keeping an eye out.

VDOT says high waters caused by heavy rain and high tides are preventing the loading ramps on the docks from safely being raised and lowered onto the ferry boats.

“We had 28 inches of water in our house from Irene”, Flanders told CNN affiliate WCAX.

She wrote that the nearby Pacolet River has previously overflowed its banks and she fears it might happen again. Streets were largely deserted as people remained hunkered down on the island of Eleuthera, which was bracing for heavy winds later Friday.

The storm’s “extremely unsafe conditions” are expected to continue over portions of the Bahamas on Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center. It has sustained top winds of 130 miles per hour (215 kph).

U.S. energy installations in the Gulf of Mexico were unaffected by the storm.

Could it still make landfall in U.S.?

The US Government’s National Hurricane Center forecasts that the 800-mile wide Joaquin will veer away from the USA and east into the North Atlantic – towards Britain.

“Every year, we kind of hold our breath, knowing that we’re due”, said Brian Shotwell, manager of a sandwich shop. “It could still shift”.

“Joaquin may provide our first opportunity to use our new storm damage assessment app that automatically uploads information from the field to our electronic outage management system”, Sears said.