In wake of Irene, flood fears paramount in Pa.

MICHAEL RUBINKAM,Associated Press

PATRICK WALTERS,Associated Press

A large tree fell and crushed this minivan near the intersection of Lathrop and Westmoreland Sts. Kingston. Don Carey Times Leader Photo

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Irene, the hurricane that weakened to a tropical storm, contributed to at least four deaths and left hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania customers in the dark Sunday as swollen creeks and rising rivers throughout the eastern half of the state stoked fears of more flooding in the days to come.

Power companies warned that some could be without electricity for a week or more. On the Delaware River, the communities of Easton and New Hope braced for major flooding predicted to arrive Monday, and shelters prepared to accept flood evacuees.

It was another river, the Schuylkill, that wreaked havoc on Sunday, cresting to more than 15 feet in Norristown and inundating homes with muddy water.

At the 80-member Norristown Boat Club, members had a prime view of the swollen Schuylkill, lounging on the porch as the river rose and the water lapped the front steps. A few feet away, a speed-limit sign was almost entirely submerged.

Club member Peggy Wilson, 56, of Norristown, said it was the second-worst flooding she'd seen on the Schuylkill since joining in the 1980s.

"Lots of cleaning up," she said. "After the water goes away, then we have mud. And that's the worst, because it gets on everything."

Bud Buono's house on stilts was surrounded by water, reachable only by watercraft. Buono, 51, who's also a boat-club member, said he'd gotten everything out of his ground-floor basement ahead of the flood. But neighbors with older, bungalow-style houses weren't so fortunate — they had water in their living spaces.

"You take the good with the bad down here," said Buono, who's lived on the Schuylkill for 30 years. "It's a different breed of people."

In Philadelphia, the Schuylkill flooded low-lying streets and crested at 13.56 feet just after 2 p.m. — below the 15-foot level that city officials had forecast but still well over flood stage — and fell back to 13.42 feet. It was expected to drop through the night.

Mayor Michael Nutter lifted the city's state of emergency — the first since 1986 — and SEPTA, the city's mass transit agency, resumed bus and trolley service, though regional rail to the suburbs remained shut down. Philadelphia International Airport reopened at 4 p.m. with limited arrivals, but no departures, airport spokeswoman Victoria Lupica said.

Seven city buildings collapsed in the storm, but no injuries were reported. Some 21,000 in the city lost power. A total of 179 people and seven pets stayed in three city shelters.

Nutter warned residents of the nation's fifth-largest city to stay home and off the roads as the cleanup continued. Philadelphia got 5.7 inches of rain, waterlogging an already sodden part of the state that is in record territory for rainfall in August.

"These are near-record highs," he said of the flooding in some areas. "We do not want folks to be deceived by what's going on."

Echoing Nutter's call, Gov. Tom Corbett cautioned that residents across the state needed to be mindful of the risk of flooding.

"We have been very fortunate to this point," Corbett said at a news conference. "Even though it's clearing up out there, we're not done yet."

Statewide, about 706,000 people lacked power late Sunday afternoon, according to Ruth Miller, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. The tally included 375,000 PECO electric customers in the Philadelphia area and 230,000 PPL Corp. customers in Allentown and points north.

Some PECO customers may not get their power back for seven to 10 days, according to spokeswoman Karen Muldoon Geus.

"We're really working around the clock to try to get our customers back on as quickly as possible," she said. "Mother Nature has not been kind to us the last couple of days."

PPL said Irene damaged transmission and distribution systems, flooded substations, and knocked down countless power lines — a total of 3,500 individual cases of trouble.

The state emergency agency attributed four deaths to the storm. Falling trees crushed a man in a camper in Luzerne County and a man in a tent in Dauphin County. A motorist skidded over an embankment and hit a tree on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Carbon County.

In Monroe County, Michael Scerarko, 44, was killed when a tree fell on him in his yard, Pocono Township police Cpl. Doug Smith said. Scerarko, of Stroudsburg, pushed his son out of the way, but could not get out of the way himself.

At Fort Indiantown Gap, the Pennsylvania National Guard monitored the storm and response in real time, plastering maps and operational data on a massive screen occupying much of one wall in a basement command center.

The storm knocked out power at the base, but generators kept computers and communications up and running as commanders coordinated efforts, including the evacuation of about 150 people from Perkasie, Bucks County, because of flooding. Guardsmen also cleared out a Monroe County mobile home park.

Rising waters will continue to be the chief concern for rescuers. Even as the storm moved out of Pennsylvania, Guard officials monitored rainfall totals in New York — a major factor in downstream flooding.

"You're never quite sure when you're out of the woods," Col. Robert Hodgson told The Associated Press.

For many, Irene was more nuisance than catastrophe. At Philadelphia University, junior Laurel Brooks used several buckets to catch leaks in her fourth-floor dorm room. She said there was water leaking out of the electric outlet.

In Hatboro, a man was rescued by boat after he drove onto a flooded road and ended up clinging to a tree. In northeastern Pennsylvania, Wilkes-Barre residents evacuated their homes after Solomon Creek spilled over its banks, WNEP-TV reported. Water from Mehoopany Creek covered a bridge in Wyoming County.

More than 70 people stayed the night at an American Rd Cross shelter in Darby, outside Philadelphia, mostly chatting, reading, playing board games and seeking solace in the company of strangers.

Shakeriah Brown, 32, a homemaker from Upper Darby, said her son was playing basketball.

"They're little boys and they have so much energy to burn," she said.

Bill Day, 54, who moved out of Darby a year ago, returned Sunday in hopes of helping some of his former neighbors clean up. But none of them were around — all of them were still evacuated.

As he surveyed the swollen waters covering the streets of his old neighborhood, Day said it wasn't nearly as bad as he expected.

"Floyd was worse than this one," Day said of the 1999 hurricane. "I expected a lot more trees down."

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Walters reported from Philadelphia. Randy Pennell contributed to this story from Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa.