A half-dozen inches of driving rain sent creek water surging into streets, homes and businesses across the area Friday, then before cleanup could start in earnest, gorged rivers till they too overspilled their banks last night.

Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Pittsburgh's Point State Park is submerged as floodwaters from the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers peaked at 31 feet yesterday evening, carrying runoff from nearly six inches of rain dumped on the region Friday by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan. Click photo for larger image. More flooding coverage Carnegie: A town under water State relief effort will be massive Overdevelopment blamed for flooding Reopening of roads a slow process Additional flooding photos

The bad news didn't let up in the municipalities hit hardest by flooding caused by the largest single-day rainfall in Allegheny County history, from families who lost all of their household belongings to the accidental drowning of a Carnegie man who apparently lost his grip on a tree in the flooded borough early yesterday morning.

Emergency workers around the compass who been out all Friday night reported back at dawn yesterday. They worked at cleaning up tons of flood debris from the whiplash of Hurricane Ivan while keeping an eye on the rising rivers that still threatened under a deceptive clear-blue sky.

County Executive Dan Onorato spent most of the day in a handful of the hardest-hit municipalities -- Carnegie, Etna, Millvale, Bridgeville and South Fayette -- to see the damage for himself.

"The pictures we've seen don't begin to do justice to the damage that's out there," Onorato said during a news conference yesterday. "We're talking hundreds and hundreds of people who have lost everything."

Most of those people do not have flood insurance, Onorato said.

The damage in the business districts of Carnegie, Etna and Millvale will "guarantee that 100 percent of their businesses will be closed on Monday," he said.

Twenty-seven of the county's 130 municipalities declared emergencies yesterday, while 18 more were forced to activate their emergency operations centers to deal with the crisis.

About 2,000 people sought refuge in emergency shelters across the county Friday night, where the Salvation Army and Red Cross offered food and other assistance, Onorato said. Area hospitals reported 92 people sought treatment for ailments that included hypothermia and broken bones.

Surrounding counties were hit hard as well, with roads washed out, people stranded, and emergency services stretched to the breaking point. Gov. Ed Rendell has requested federal aid for 34 counties, including Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Clarion, Indiana, Washington and Westmoreland. He will tour the region by helicopter today.

A rise in the rivers last night was not expected to cause problems as serious as Friday's deluge, though the flooding wasn't over for Sharpsburg and other riverfront communities, said Bob Full, the county's emergency services director. The rising rivers did cause havoc with some marinas, particularly on the Allegheny River, Full said. Floodwater also threatened the Alcosan plant on the Ohio.

Duquesne Light reported that 9,500 customers remained without power last night, while 6,700 Allegheny Power customers were still without service, most of them in Fayette, Greene and Westmoreland counties. The majority should have power restored by late tonight or tomorrow morning.

THE NUMBERS

The official record-setting one-day rainfall total for Allegheny County on Friday is 5.95 inches, according to Ray Visneski, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh.

Rain stopped falling around the region by early yesterday, and no more rain is predicted until at least next weekend, when the remnants of Hurricane Karl could possibly arrive, Visneski said.

But water was still making its way downstream, causing the Ohio, Allegheny, Beaver, Youghiogheny and Clarion Rivers to crest above flood stage at various locations around the region. By yesterday afternoon, the Beaver River in Beaver County and Yough in Fayette County were both out of their banks, causing additional woe in communities where homes already had taken on water after Friday's heavy rains.

The Monongahela River was expected to exceed flood stage only slightly at Elizabeth and Braddock, although it rose high enough Downtown to cover the Monongahela Wharf, which floods at 17 feet.

The Ohio River covered most of Point State Park before cresting at 31 feet at 5 p.m. -- 6 feet over flood stage, but earlier and slightly lower than predicted.

The Ohio also was expected to experience more flooding along its banks from Pittsburgh through West Virginia and as far west as Hannibal, Ohio.

Forecasts also called for the river to crest well above flood stage today in West Virginia and Ohio, rising to 41.6 feet, or 5.6 feet above flood stage, in Steubenville, Ohio, and 46 feet, or a whopping 10 feet above flood stage, in Wheeling, W.Va.

"We are near the end,'' Visneski said, noting that the river should crest at 8 p.m. at 40.5 feet, or 5 feet above flood stage, at Hannibal. But by then, countless other riverfront residents and towns will likely have experienced another wave of wet misery, while many more will be at the beginning of the cleanup.

ETNA AND SHARPSBURG

Etna and Sharpsburg were closed to outsiders yesterday as emergency workers and public works employees used backhoes and bulldozers to remove tons of dirt, sand, tree limbs and other debris. Sharpsburg was all but inaccessible as water covered Main Street and prevented access from the east, west and north.

In Etna, the financially struggling All Saints School on Dewey Street was devastated as the rushing waters of Pine Creek and Little Pine Creek overran their banks and careened across Grant Avenue into Dewey, Pine and Spring streets.

The floors of the school, which opened in 1958 and now has 48 students in kindergarten through seventh grade, were caked with inches of mud in which textbooks were stuck. Shelves, desks and books in the room that contains the school's library were topsy-turvy.

Across the street, parish maintenance chief Dan Dougherty manned a pump to remove 8 feet of water from the church's basement. Five feet of water filled the parish's activities building next door with enough force to knock a walk-in freezer off its foundation and to crack the supports in the hall's stage floor, which sits 4 feet above the main floor.

"It's bad," Dougherty said, shaking his head.

Dougherty's son, Matt, an Etna police officer, was trapped Friday night after he and five others, including another borough officer, became stranded on the second floor of a fire department hall on Crescent Street.

The officers were in boats on rescue missions to help trapped residents when the boats collided after being swept in the current of a burgeoning Pine Creek and they were forced to seek refuge in the fire hall. The group able to walk out after the creek receded early yesterday.

Friday's powerful surge of water ripped the railroad crossing gates out of the ground at the Grant Avenue bridge, which was chock full of limbs, trash and other debris.

Across the railroad tracks and Grant Avenue, about 50 yards from the Blarney Stone restaurant, Denise Blanyer escaped Alioto's Pizzeria and Restaurant about 3 p.m. Friday after she and her boss, Jeff Mosco, forced open a rear door and jumped into Mosco's sports utility vehicle.

The trip home to Shaler through the flooded streets of Etna and Shaler was surreal. At times, Blanyer said she felt like Dorothy looking out the window of Aunt Em's home after the twister in the Wizard of Oz.

"We're driving up [the road] and trees were going by us, then we saw a garbage can, barrels and a bunch of other stuff," Blanyer said. "It felt like the truck was floating."

At least 5 feet of water filled the inside of Mosco's restaurant, leaving silt on the floors and halfway up the walls and overturning stoves, freezers and refrigerators.

ON THE ALLEGHENY

Dan Bishop has ridden an emotional roller coast over the last two days.

Friday evening, his daughter, Keira, was born.

Yesterday, he watched as speeding river waters swept his and about 80 boats moored at Washington's Landing Marina away.

Bishop, of Crafton, had stopped at the marina to check on his 22-foot cabin cruiser, when he saw a large boat floating briskly toward the dock.

"It was staggering. You started to hear the noises, creaking. The whole marina let go and just went down the river," Bishop said. "I was sick to my stomach."

According to the general manager there, about 140 of 170 boats at the marina were lost in two giant groups yesterday.

The first occurred at about 4 a.m., when Dave Gregory says about 50 boats broke loose. The second set of boats, more than 80 that time, were swept away about 12:30 in the afternoon.

Gregory blames the damage on a huge amount of debris that floated down the Allegheny River. Trees, sticks, barrels and other garbage began pushing on the docks, and the weight of it all eventually just forced the pilings over, causing the docks to slip off.

The Coast Guard spent a lot of time yesterday trying to corral large flotillas of boats, pushing them off to the side of the river, in hopes of beaching them, Gregory said. That worked for some, though many others have yet to be found.

Gregory had his own boat docked at the marina. A dock neighbor said he found his boat well downstream in Emsworth yesterday.

Bishop, who left the marina after the second sweep of boats broke away, was going across the West End Bridge when he saw the boats that had broken loose passing underneath. He pulled over and saw the top of the cover on his boat.

He also saw people working on barges trying to save some of the boats.

"They were doing a good job," Bishop said. "[But] it was too hard. The water's going too, too fast."

All of the boats at Washington's Landing were insured by their owners, and Gregory says the business does plan to rebuild. He estimated that, throughout the day yesterday, he saw between 200 and 300 boats float by, including a group of 30 from Allegheny Marina.

"The entire marina floated by us at 7:30 this morning," Gregory said. "It was the oddest thing."

ON THE OHIO

Emergency workers continued yesterday to evacuate homes in Leet, Bell Acres and other communities where residents remained trapped on upper floors by high water that rose from creeks and streams after Friday's heavy rains. Damage and high water were so widespread around the county that Emergency Management Agency Director Wesley Hill said he was hard pressed to say one community was harder hit than another.

"It's the whole damn county,'' Hill said while he scrambled to find a helicopter that could lift a trapped person off the roof of a one-story house in North Sewickley. "It's going on and on and on.''

Many of the same communities that were already flooded earlier this month by the remnants of Hurricane Frances were swamped again and remained under several feet of water, including New Sewickley, North Sewickley, Darlington, Franklin, Independence, Marion, Monaca and Potter. In Hopewell, the Green Garden shopping plaza and neighboring Unis Auto Sales were again under several feet of water.

"The water has been so high and fast, we can't get assessment teams in to check [the damage],'' he said. "You watch structures moving right out from under [people].

Hill knew of no deaths or serious injuries but had no idea of how many people or homes had been affected by Friday's flooding, saying there were too many to count. He was more intent on watching the Beaver River spill over its banks, forcing the closing of streets and evacuation of homes in Bridgewater and New Brighton as well as the closing of New Brighton's sewage-treatment plant.

Bridgewater, Fallston, Ohioville, Industry and Vanport along the river were expected to flood, as were numerous chemical plants, factories and water- or sewage-treatment plants along the river. Hill said some of his staff spent yesterday notifying officials at those plants to shut down operations and secure equipment in low-lying areas to prevent dangerous materials from getting into the water.

"We've been consulting with the Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers all day,'' he said.

BUTLER COUNTY

Damage again was heavy all along the Connoquenessing Creek, which gushed out of its banks again for the second time this month. Homes in Porters Cove and on Hartman Road near Hartman's Golf Course remained under water and summer cottages near Texter Hill "will pretty much be gone,'' Jackson police Sgt. Tim Amrhein said.

A newly renovated bridge on Hartman Road also was damaged and 5 feet of water covered Harmony from Spring Street to the Harmony Bridge.

"Everybody who has been affected by the flood has been evacuated,'' he said. More houses along Breakneck Creek, which flows near Route 68 and into the Connoquenessing, also were under water and Evergreen Mill Road remained cut off.

That forced township officials to make sure they had emergency vehicles and access to a helicopter if necessary to treat or remove residents of the Evergreen Nursing Home, which lies between the two pools of high water blocking the road, Amrhein said.

Authorities also had to deal with gawkers who drove into the county to view flood damage for themselves, bringing unwanted traffic and getting in the way of workers in communities where many roads and streets were still closed due to flood water or damage.

"Now you got everybody going out and about to see the running water,'' Amrhein said. "They should stay home and turn on a faucet.''

WASHINGTON COUNTY

Smashed mobile homes. Houses listing off foundations. Railroad ties jammed against the gasoline pumps outside a convenience store.

These were just some of the sights beheld by county Emergency Management Director Jeffrey A. Yates while he drove through communities in the northern part of the county yesterday. Most of Friday's flood damage was concentrated there, although flooding also occurred along Pigeon Creek in Carroll and Monongahela, he said.

Many homes were flooded to the second floor, and some would have to be condemned, he said.

Roads remained washed out and closed all over the county, and Yates had no idea when they would reopen. Among them was Route 519 outside Houston, where the highway already had been under construction at its intersection with Pike Street, the tiny borough's main street.

Elsewhere in Houston, where residents and businesses already had been struggling with traffic and lost revenues during the $2.1 million road project, the municipal building and surrounding area was under 7 feet of water. Shelley's Pike Inn, a local landmark, also caught fire yesterday, Yates said, but authorities could not immediately determine if the fire was related to problems caused by flooding.

Damage also was heavy in Avella, Independence and Burgettstown, where a four-lane stretch of Route 18 was inundated with water from Raccoon Creek. A Foodland grocery in that area "is done, destroyed,'' Yates said, and a nearby Family Dollar store is almost as bad, he said.

Dozens of mobile homes were destroyed or damaged in a park near the Monterey Inn off Route 18 in Canton, where residents had to be rescued by boat. More damage was reported in Peters, Cecil and Washington.

WESTMORELAND COUNTY

County commissioners declared a disaster emergency yesterday after assessing heavy flood damage caused by the Allegheny River in New Kensington, Upper Burrell and Lower Burrell, county Public Safety spokesman Dan Stevens said.

Elsewhere around the county, damage was limited to mostly basement flooding, he said. But workers also were pumping water out of a flooded sewage-treatment plant along Loyalhanna Creek in Ligonier Borough so that they could make repairs and restore the plant to service, Stevens said.

Stevens urged residents of the county who have suffered flood damage to notify municipal officials so that their losses can be figured into estimates that may enable them to qualify for low-interest loans or other assistance.

ALCOSAN

At the Alcosan plant on the Ohio River, workers had planned to devote yesterday to holding an open house intended to school the public on the effects of wet weather on sewer systems. Instead, they spent the day dealing with those effects themselves.

"Oh, the irony,'' said spokeswoman Nancy Barylak, noting that the plant by late afternoon was running at less than half of its power and might have to shut down altogether until the Ohio River had crested and begun to recede.

The plant has had to slow its water-pumping operation and pump in less than half of the 200 million gallons it usually handles in a day because the river is so high and filled with debris, she said.

"When you pump the river into the plant, there are adverse effects on mechanical operations due to all the plastic and debris,'' that gets sucked in as well, she said. The water is also muddier and dirtier than usual, which impedes the biological processes employed by the plant, she said.

Operations also are impeded because the rising river had covered the plant's outfall, where clean water is discharged under the McKees Rocks Bridge, Barylak said. That meant that dirty river water and the debris and fish it contained was flowing up into the plant.

"If it continues like that, we will have to make the decision to shut down all the pumps,'' she said. That would mean that sewage would flow from homes and businesses into public sewer systems, but then would empty directly into streams and creeks until the river falls back to 25 feet, allowing the plant to resume operations.

TAP WATER

Water service was disrupted throughout the South Hills, as well as in the Monongahela Valley and in Peters yesterday after two of Pennsylvania-American Water Co. pumping plants lost electrical power.

Disruptions, which also affected the South Hills Village shopping mall, ranged from low water pressure to no water at all, spokesman Phil Cynar said. The utility asked customers to conserve water while crews worked to restore power to the Hays Mine plant on Becks Run Road and the Aldrich plant in Union.

"We couldn't replenish our system, and it didn't help that it's been quite messy,'' he said. "People wanted to clean up [after being flooded] but we were asking them to curtail usage.''

The company also could not provide water to the West Allegheny Water Co., which also was experiencing problems.

By evening, repairs had been completed at the Aldrich plant and had restored the Hays Mine plant to half capacity, Cynar said. Water service was expected to be back to normal sometime today.