JUST when it seemed that winter bad exhausted its fury on Washington, the US capital was hit by its worst floods in a decade as the River Potomac, gorged with melted snow, burst its banks yesterday in several places.
Streets in the Georgetown area and in the historic riverside suburb of Alexandria were flooded with freezing, muddy water, as the Potomac crested at up to 2.5 metres above normal flood levels.
Flooding hit many areas of the north eastern United States after rains lashed down on a deep snow layer left behind by the "Blizzard of `96" on January 7th.
President Clinton yesterday signed a declaration recognising Pennsylvania as a disaster area after floods inundated many towns and villages.
Warm air from the Gulf of Mexico at first produced eerie, swirling fog as it made contact with the snow. This was followed by rains of tropical intensity, accompanied by lightning, which melted most of the snow within a few hours.
Temperatures plummeted from plus 15 degrees Celsius to minus 10 degrees, causing flooded streets to ice over quickly. "We've had everything now except a plague of locusts," complained one weather forecaster.
The rain and melted snow caused rivers to rise with exceptional speed. The Susquehanna River overflowed into the Pennsylvania state capital of Harrisburg, drowning three people and forcing 1,000 residents from their homes.
The waters, carrying debris and slabs of ice, swamped the mansion of the Governor of Pennsylvania, Mr Torn Ridge, who spent the night at a police station.
Mr Ridge, a Republican, complained bitterly that the federal authorities had ignored his pleas for help since the blizzard two weeks ago. "They said no to the snow, no to the mud, no to everything in between", he said.
The flooding in Washington was the worst since a tropical stone hit the city in 1986, according to Ms Melody Hall of the US National Weather Service. The river swamped the Potomac canal which runs alongside it and closed the George Washington and Clara Barton Parkways, key routes to the Washington beltway.
Hundreds of sightseers turned out to witness the spectacle of the Potomac upriver in full fury but police closed all state parks along its wooded banks. Three youths who wandered on to rocks had to be airlifted out by helicopter when the river rose behind them.
In Alexandria, restaurant and antique shop owners in the narrow streets, usually packed with tourists and weekenders, sandbagged their doorways in an often vain effort to keep back the water. Two people were rescued in the bucket of a giant earthmover.
Inquiries into the snow clearing operation reveal that Washington - capital of the world's only superpower and dependent on the federal government for its funding - is so broke that it could not afford tyres for some of its snow ploughs.
Many vehicles lay idle because the council could not afford spare parts. Garbage trucks were not fitted with ploughs and brought into use because of fears they would break down and devastate rubbish collection.