Storms packing winds of about 90 m.p.h. hit western Wisconsin over the weekend, injuring two people, uprooting trees, damaging or destroying homes, and leaving thousands of people without power Sunday.
Heavy rain flooded basements and low-lying roads.
“We’ve got one giant tree lying on our house,” said Dave George, 47, of Arcadia, Wis., after a 50-foot-plus maple tree crushed his two-story home.
“It’s amazing we have any trees left to blow down,” said Todd Rieck, a National Weather Service meteorologist in La Crosse. “Some places just got devastating damage.”
Persistent heavy rains added to high-water woes Sunday in several states hammered by thunderstorms blamed for 10 deaths.
Roads carrying muddy runoff from fierce downpours that started Friday were impassable in upstate New York, and Vermont’s deluged Mad River Valley was littered with uprooted trees tangled with other debris when waters receded.
About 30 families were forced from a mobile home park in rural West Virginia, where rising waters caused several homes to float off their moorings, said D.R. Smith, Wood County emergency services director.
“We were actually moving people out of their floating homes,” Smith said. “There were some frightened people.”
A Bridgewater, N.H., man died after being sucked into a culvert that he was trying to clear of debris.
Ohio Gov. George Voinovich declared 16 counties disaster areas after heavy rains hit the eastern part of the state for the second straight day.
