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An unyielding, stationary band of rain caused extreme flooding across portions of Pennsylvania and Maryland on Friday night, forcing authorities to conduct more than two dozen water rescues.
At least one of those incidents turned fatal. In Bel Air, Maryland, a man driving a sedan got stuck on a bridge on Friday. The water rose and soon submerged his car up to the roof, Maryland State Police said.
A man and a woman in a passing truck stopped to try to help the man, whom authorities identified as Daniel Samis, 67, of Abingdon, Maryland. But the woman fell and was swept over the side of the bridge, authorities said.
The man in the truck raced to a nearby quarry to search for the woman. He wasn’t able to find her, but he flagged people who could call 911.
In the meantime, floodwaters pulled Samis’ submerged car over the side of the bridge as well. Authorities recovered his body Saturday morning.
The female good Samaritan remains missing.
Some areas in Pennsylvania and Maryland saw as much as 10 inches of rain from Friday into Saturday, said James Sinko, a meteorologist at the Weather Channel. The culprit was a unique combination of Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico moisture, which stalled over the region and dumped 1 to 3 inches per hour.
“You get a big storm that blows up over an area, and it just rains and rains and rains,” Sinko said. “That creates a lot of flash flooding that will shut down roads and everything.”
The storm forced authorities in the area to close roads and highways, and it left some stranded in vehicles during the busy holiday weekend.
About 50 miles north of Bel Air in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, 10.57 inches of rain fell. Roads turned into rivers and creeks jumped up to 10 feet in just a couple of hours, according to NBC News Philadelphia.
The storm hit amid a particularly wet summer for this part of Pennsylvania, NBC News Philadelphia reported. A region that typically sees 41 inches of rain per year has received 30 inches since June alone.
“The ground being saturated isn’t helping at all,” Lancaster County Commissioner Dennis Stuckey told NBC News Philadelphia. “We had a few days of sunshine but not enough to dry everything out.”