By Jacqueline L. Salmon and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 9, 2005

Heavy rainfall that has swept through the Washington area in the past two days has doused the September drought with an October deluge.

The rain -- the remnants of Tropical Storm Tammy that moved up the East Coast -- flooded roads, triggered some evacuations and washed out fall festivals. At the same time, it thrilled gardeners, who struggled to save parched landscaping through the driest September on record.

By nightfall the two-day rainfall had dumped 7.25 inches at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and 6.61 inches at Dulles International Airport -- more then twice the average rainfall for the entire month of October, said Brian Guyer, a spokesman for the National Weather Service.

The September dry spell -- less than one-tenth of an inch of rain fell -- has been "wiped out," said Guyer. "We're above normal again."

For some, the rain presented an unwelcome diversion to weekend plans.

At Union Station, customer service agent Yolanda Hochoa got an earful -- and some fists pounded on her counter -- from Amtrak travelers frustrated by delays of up to 2-1/2 hours after a tree just north of the station fell on train-signal wiring during today's morning's downpour.

"It was crazy," said Hochoa. "Everybody got so furious. But I guess I understand; some people had business to take care of."

At 2:15 p.m., a crowd of 250 passengers, many frowning and some pacing, were still trying to leave on a train destined for New York's Penn Station.

The Feaster family -- two sisters, one brother and their mother -- were determinedly upbeat as they headed to a party in lower Manhattan to celebrate their youngest sister's 30th birthday. The group had planned to leave on a 12:25 p.m. train that was indefinitely delayed, then switched to take a train scheduled to leave at 1:25 p.m. But 45 minutes after its scheduled departure, that train still hadn't pulled out.

"We've got our coffee, our family to talk to," said Shannon Feaster, one of the sisters. "But the party starts at 8 p.m., so trust me, I'm going to be mad if we're not in the city by then."

Today's torrential downpours set one-day records across the region. At National Airport, 3.62 inches of rain fell, besting by more than two inches the previous record, set in 1996, according to the National Weather Service. Rainfall totals at Dulles and at Baltimore Washington Airport today also set one-day records.

The Weather Service issued a flood warning for most of the area today. Some parts of northern Maryland received up to 10 inches of rain during the two-day storm, said Guyer.

In Maryland's Harford County, about 30 people were evacuated from their homes and others were rescued from cars stalled out on roads with as much as 6 feet of water, Jim Terrell, the fire chief of Darlington, told the Associated Press.

In the Washington area, authorities reported flooded roads, plenty of minor accidents, scattered power outages and many cancellations of weekend events.

The Maryland Million, the second-biggest day of horse racing in the state after the Preakness Stakes, was postponed early in the morning because of the rain. The event, a celebration of thoroughbred racing and breeding in the state, routinely draws crowds of around 20,000 to Laurel Park. It was rescheduled for next Saturday.

The triumphant finale of the Tour of Hope cross-country bicycle ride, lead by seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, was also washed out after rain flooded some of the roads on which the cyclists -- including 1,500 local riders -- were supposed to travel.

The event had been scheduled to culminate in a festival on the Ellipse, which was canceled. But at the last minute, when the rain faded briefly to a drizzle at around 1 p.m. Armstrong thrilled fans by riding down Constitution Avenue with his 25 Tour of Hope teammates to celebrate the end of the nine-day, cross country bike relay that raised more than $1.5 million for cancer research.

But the deluge will save at least some dehydrated landscaping, said Stephen Cockerham, owner of Betty's Azalea Ranch in Fairfax.

And it came in time to save autumn leaf colors, he said. "We were headed in a direction where they were just going to turn brown and die," said Cockerham. Now, he said, "we're going to have some pretty spectacular colors."

Washington Post staff writers John Scheinman and Hamil Harris contributed to this report .