BOUND BROOK, N.J., Sept. 17 -- Hurricane Floyd is sweeping through Canada's maritime provinces as a non-tropical storm, after causing flooding, fire and power outages from the Bahamas to Maine. The death toll from the hurricane reached 16 and was expected to go higher today. Hundreds of thousands along the East Coast are impatiently waiting for their electricity to return. The most spectacular event was a fire at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Bound Brook, N.J., which had to be fought from boats and helicopters because of 6-15 feet of water on the ground. New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman calls the storm damage in the Garden State 'impossible to assess,' predicting that it will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Rockland County, just north of the New Jersey line in New York, has also been declared a disaster area. Piermont, a picturesque riverside town wedged between the Hudson River and the Palisades, was deluged with rocks and mud sliding off the cliffs Thursday night. The mudslides brought down trees and buried streets and cars. At least seven deaths have been blamed on Floyd in the mid-Atlantic region. In Bear, Del., two girls, aged 11 and 12, drowned when they were swept into a storm drain Thursday afternoon. A man, woman and child were killed in a crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and a man was found dead in his flooded basement in Norristown. In New Jersey, a man was reported drowned in Lodi. In the Carolinas, hundreds of people were stranded because of flooding, 88 roads were closed and 350,000 people remain without power after the winds and rains of Hurricane Floyd.
Portions of Interstates 40 and 95 remain closed because they are under water and National Guard helicopters are flyingsearch and rescue missions, picking some residents off of rooftops. Officials in Myrtle Beach, S.C., where 20 inches of rain fell in 24 hours, labeled Floyd a 500-year flood. Damage from Floyd in the Carolinas has been estimated in the billions of dollars. The hurricane is being blamed for at least five deaths from traffic accidents in the Carolinas. Among those killed was a state transportation employee who slipped while trying to help a stranded motorist in Trenton. One man was killed in western Massachusetts in a rain-related auto mishap. Airports along the eastern seaboard were beginning to open but flights were delayed and lines in terminals were long. In the Bahamas, there was a report of only one traffic-related death, but the Abacos and Eleuthera took direct hits when the storm was packing 155 mph winds and many homes and businesses were flattened. Residents said it would take a year or more to recover. ---
Copyright 1999 by United Press International. All rights reserved. ---
