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Pocomoke hardest hit by downpour

(Sept. 22, 2016) By late Monday afternoon, floodwaters had crossed Route 113’s southbound lanes north of Pocomoke City in at least two places, Route 756 was about to be shut down, and both Market Street and Clarke Avenue were closed in places because of rising water from a coastal storm.
By Tuesday morning, City Manager/City Attorney Ernie Crofoot said things had become calmer, the flash flooding had started to subside and cleanup efforts were underway.
“The combination of the volume of rain, the short time factor and the fact that stormwater mitigation swales and other measures can only hold so much water led to the flooding,” Crofoot said.
The wastewater treatment plant was “the least of his concerns” on Monday, he said, though the town did need to switch holding lagoons to accommodate all the runoff. Crofoot said several manhole covers in town were dislodged and overflowed during the squall.
Reports of a lightning strike at Pocomoke’s Hartley Hall were confirmed by Gary Crowley, administrator. The strike did not hit the center itself, but nearby, causing minor issues but not interrupting services to residents. Though the flooding was severe near Hartley Hall, the facility did not take on water, Crowley said.
“The heavy rain was a result of many ingredients coming together over Maryland’s lower Eastern Shore on Monday,” Ava Marie, morning meteorologist at WBAL, said. “There was a low pressure system spinning off the coast of North Carolina, left over from what was once Tropical Storm Julia. That low carried moisture into Maryland’s atmosphere, giving the setup for heavy rain.”
A cold front approaching from the west helped center the storm over the lower shore, she said.
“Energy swinging by in the upper atmosphere further concentrated the rain into heavy bands that trained over the same areas for several hours. Pocomoke City experienced rainfall rates of one to three inches per hour for several hours and the radar estimates up to seven inches of rain fell in just 12 hours on Monday,” Marie said.
Crofoot said local estimates were in the 10-inch range.
“While it caused flooding in the short term, this helped make a huge dent in the drought that was forming in the region,” Marie said. “National Weather Service Climate Data from nearby Wallops Island, shows that the region has seen below average rainfall since the beginning of August. Had the ground not been so dry, the area likely would have experienced greater flooding.”