Heavy Rain Forces Evacuations, Causes Floods Across Area

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Sights and Sounds of Tropical Storm Hanna

Despite Tropical Storm Hanna's downpour, locals and tourists tried to go about their day in Washington, D.C. The situation was worse in the Huntington area of Fairfax County, where 114 homes were evacuated because of flooding.

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Maryland State Police Sgt. J. Leichtman said people were driving too fast for the conditions, causing many accidents.

The fatal accident occurred just after noon on Interstate 95 in Prince George's County. The driver, headed south in a Toyota Tacoma truck, lost control near the Powder Mill Road exit and smashed into a tree in the highway median. He died at the scene, but an infant in the car survived. Their identities were not released yesterday.

Kaine said there were three deaths from storm-related crashes in the Richmond area.

In the Washington region, puddled water and fallen trees closed roads from Leesburg to North Beach, on the Calvert County shoreline. The storm's sustained winds were piddling by hurricane standards. But there were a couple of 40 mph gusts, and they still brought down tree limbs, and sometimes entire trees.

In Woodbridge, Rocio Chavaria, 18, was watching TV in the living room when he heard a loud crack. And then there was a tree branch sticking through the ceiling and into the kitchen.

"Water was coming in, and I said, 'Oh, Lord,' " Chavaria said. "I'm upset by the damage, but we're relieved that everybody's fine and no one got hurt."

Forecasters had predicted that Hanna might hit Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore hardest. But Northern Virginia wound up being the storm's chief victim, hit repeatedly by bands of clouds from the storm's rainy northwest quadrant.

Weather officials said 5.11 inches fell at Dulles International Airport, and 6.19 inches in Leesburg. Kaine, in an afternoon conference call, said that some spots in Prince William received as much as nine inches. The National Airport figure was 3.5 inches.

And all that rain had to go somewhere.

In one section of Woodbridge, it filled a creek so high that it spilled out and covered Blackburn Road in ankle-deep water.

"I've lived here all my life, and I've never seen it like this," said Chris King, 43, who said he had seen a Papa John's Pizza delivery car splash through, defying a line of police flares.

Things were even worse at Neabsco Creek, which turned from a small stream to a brown torrent, 200 yards wide and carrying logs and other debris. Underneath it, five feet down, was a bridge carrying Route 1 over the creek. The state had been trying to raise the bridge, but didn't do it fast enough: The floodwaters submerged traffic cones and lapped at the treads of excavating machines.