High Water

Everywhere you looked last weekend - from the creeks of suburban Philadelphia north to the Lehigh River and beyond, then west across the mighty Susquehanna and north again to scenic Pine Creek and its superb freestone tributaries, a 440-mile journey - Pennsylvania's trout streams were roily. The high water, the result of steady rains that fell atop a melting snowpack, was thick, brown and uninviting. Water formed pools on croplands and on rural back yards and lawns. At one farm, geese glided across a soggy cornfield.

Scott McCaughey is feeling sinister. Taking to an outdoor stage on a sunny afternoon at the South by Southwest Music Festival, the leader of the Minus 5 is dressed in black, from cowboy hat down. The frizzy-haired, 51-year-old rocker smiles from behind dark shades and a devilish Van Dyke. The words emblazoned on his guitar strap - Doctor of Evil - suggest he's up to no good. McCaughey (pronounced McCoy) will bring the Minus 5, including R.E.M.'s Peter Buck on bass, to World Cafe Live in Philadelphia on Wednesday.

Rescue workers under orders not to enter the turbulent Perkiomen Creek in Montgomery County searched its tree-lined banks yesterday, looking for a Collegeville man and his son presumed to have died while canoeing Wednesday on the waterway. Volunteer fire companies, the Norristown Dive Rescue Unit and the state Fish and Boat Commission scoured the banks near Goodrich Dam in the Oaks section of Upper Providence Township, looking for the bodies of Frederick J. House, 42, and his son Paul, 14. Searchers have said that the two are likely to be found near the lowhead cement dam, located behind the 422 Office Park.

First, the enemy was simply the rain. Now there is a new villain: time. Each passing day of the phenomenally long-lived flood in the Midwest gives the water more chances to push and poke, seeking any advantage, relentlessly burrowing under or through the obstacles it cannot surmount. "Time is a real problem," Gary Dyhouse, chief of the hydraulic section for the Army Corps of Engineers' regional office, said yesterday. "When you have high river stages, the river finds weak spots.

The Rancocas Creek's swift floodwaters continued to race under the Route 206 bridge in the Ewansville section here yesterday, and currents swirled around the foundations of several dozen homes. Still, the worst had passed, according to the National Weather Service. "Things are getting better," meteorologist Jim Eberwein said in Mount Holly. The Rancocas had fallen to 3.46 feet yesterday afternoon from its high-water mark of 3.6 feet at noon Monday, Eberwein said. Flood stage is a depth of 2.7 feet, measured at a location in Pemberton, a few miles upstream.

Memories of the record high water of two years ago washed over volunteers yesterday as they sweated on sandbag lines near the point where the flooding Missouri and Mississippi Rivers collide. "We were here in '93 and we're here again in '95 to fight the rivers. Same battle, different year, but we'll do what it takes," sandbagger Bob Thomas said under bright sunshine, with temperatures in the 80s. People in West Alton, Mo., a village bracketed by the two rivers at their confluence, reportedly celebrated at news that the Missouri had crested a half-foot lower than expected, and almost four feet below the 1993 high-water mark.

When the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge opened Aug. 14, 1929, it was supposed to open with a bang. But an afternoon downpour that day dampened the fireworks intended to highlight the ribbon-cutting. So it opened instead with a whistle, provided by the steam siren on the city launch John Wanamaker, which brought Mayor Harry A. Mackey upriver for the ceremony. The bridge put the Tacony-Palmyra Ferry out of business. The ferry was placed into service in 1922, operating between the points where the bridge's shore supports now stand.

Flooded streets, stranded vehicles, clogged sewers and power outages were caused by heavy rains and winds that lashed the western suburbs Wednesday in advance of Hurricane Hugo. A broken tree limb that severed a wire was blamed for knocking out electrical power for 2,000 customers between Llanerch in Haverford and Lawrence Park in Marple for up to one hour. Power was restored at 5:30 a.m. Thursday, Philadelphia Electric Co. said. The utility said 30,000 of its customers were without electrical power from six minutes to one hour in the five-county area Wednesday and early Thursday.

As his autobiography shows, Benjamin Franklin was involved in some episodes of juvenile delinquency, but somehow the escapades of Young Ben and his gang seem different from the more mindless misdeeds of our time. This selection was made by Roy Goodman, research librarian of the American Philosophical Society. I was generally a leader among the boys, and sometimes led them into scrapes, of which I will mention one instance. . . . There was a salt marsh that bounded part of the mill pond, on the edge of which at high water we used to fish for minnows.

Rains pushed dozens of Midwestern rivers and creeks over their banks yesterday, flooding low-lying areas and bringing out sandbag work-details that recalled scenes from the great flood of 1993. Storms that brought the drenching rains spawned about 50 tornadoes in Tennessee. One ripped through the Amish community of Ethridge, killing three people and injuring at least 20. Earlier in the day, a tornado swept across a shopping mall in Nashville, injuring at least 19 people. Tornadoes also tore through northern Alabama not far from the Tennessee line, leveling at least five houses and 15 mobile homes and injuring more than 40 people, authorities said.

An East Norriton bookkeeper driving to work at a Genuardi's Markets location died Sunday in Whitemarsh Township when her car became swamped by the roiling waters caused by Hurricane Irene. Maryanne Crager, public affairs manager for the chain, said Patricia O'Neill, 64, had worked for Genuardi's in various capacities for 40 years. "I've known her for a long time," Crager said Monday. "It's a tragedy, no doubt about it. She was a lovely woman and a dedicated, hard-working employee.

VICKSBURG, Miss. - For thousands of people forced from their homes by the rising Mississippi River, life has become a tedious waiting game: waiting for meals at shelters, waiting for the latest word on their flooded homes, waiting for the river to fall. The monotony of shelter life has taken a toll on victims who have already been displaced for weeks and may not be able to return for at least a month. The river is expected to crest Thursday in Vicksburg, but high water might not retreat in some areas until late June.

JACKSON, Miss. - In the latest efforts to reduce pressure on levees from rising floodwaters, the Coast Guard first closed a 15-mile section of the Mississippi north of New Orleans to shipping for much of Tuesday, then allowed cargo vessels on the nation's busiest waterway to pass slowly and only one at a time. Coast Guard officials said wakes generated by passing barge traffic could increase the strain on levees designed to hold back the river. Authorities were also concerned that barges could not operate safely in the flooded river, which has risen to the level of some docks and submerged others.

NEW ORLEANS - All along the swollen Mississippi River, hundreds of thousands of lives depend on a small army of engineers, deputies, and even prison inmates keeping round-the-clock watch at the many floodwalls and earthen levees holding the water back. They are looking for any droplets that seep through the barriers and any cracks that threaten to turn small leaks into big problems. The work is hot and sometimes tedious, but without it, the flooding that has caused weeks of misery from Illinois to the Mississippi Delta could get much worse.

MEMPHIS - The Coast Guard closed a stretch of the swollen Mississippi to barge traffic Friday in a move that could cause a backup along the mighty river, while police farther south in Memphis went door to door, warning thousands of people to leave before they get swamped. Emergency workers in Memphis handed out bright yellow fliers in English and Spanish that read: "Evacuate!!! Your property is in danger right now. " All the way south into the Mississippi Delta, people faced the question of whether to stay or go as high water rolled down the Big Muddy and backed up along its tributaries, breaking flood records that have stood since the Depression.

WYATT, Mo. - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers exploded a large section of a Mississippi River levee in a desperate attempt to protect the Illinois town of Cairo from rising floodwaters. The corps said the break would help Cairo by diverting up to four feet of water off the river. As of Monday evening, river levels at Cairo were at historic highs, creating pressure on the floodwall protecting the town. The blasts were likely to unleash a muddy torrent into empty farm fields. Brief but bright orange flashes could be seen above the river as the explosions went off. The blasts lasted only about two seconds.

A drenching storm with high winds swept through the region yesterday, flooding roads, downing trees and wires, delaying air travel, and forcing a high school's evacuation. After winds were blamed for overturning one tractor-trailer on the Walt Whitman Bridge yesterday morning, the units were banned on several spans. Gusts hit 62 m.p.h. about 9:30 a.m. at Philadelphia International Airport, according to the National Weather Service. When tiles and insulation blew off a roof at Washington Township High School in Gloucester County and water started pouring in about 11:30 a.m., the fire marshal ordered students and staff out of the building.

The same choppy waves that seized a 16-year-old Voorhees boy Wednesday in Seaside Heights brought the search for him to a premature halt yesterday. Sal Roberts, 16, and a friend were waist-deep in the ocean near Hamilton Avenue around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, said Richard Mingoia, president of Youth Consultation Service, a New Jersey nonprofit that benefits at-risk youth. "They were basically standing in the water, jumping around. You know, what kids do," Mingoia said. The two were among seven boys, ages 15 to 17, on an end-of-the-summer outing with a supervisor and two resident assistants from the group's Somerdale office, Mingoia said.

High water, a swift current and a debris-filled Schuylkill - including a 40-foot tree - forced Dad Vail Regatta officials to change the Day 1 format of the 71-year event. Because of dangerous conditions and the forecast of more rain, organizers decided on Thursday to switch yesterday's races to timed events, instead of head-to-head heats, and shorten the distance from 2,000 meters to 1,500. Wind and heavy rain earlier in the week, an area staple this spring, had ripped stake boats and buoys from their positions.