Published: Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009 / Updated: Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009 06:22 PM

York, Chester, Lancaster counties under flood watch

A flash flood warning continues through Thursday in York and Chester counties, although rains from Tropical Storm Ida should taper off by mid-morning, forecasters say.

Rain associated with the remnants of the tropical storm will cause rain to persist across the watch area through tonight, according to the National Weather Service. The flood watch carries over to Thursday morning.

As of 3 p.m., the storm had dumped 3.25 inches of rain at the Rock Hill Airport.

“Expect to see another 3/4 of an inch to 1- inch of rain before it's all over,” said Jeffrey Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

A total of 5 or 6 inches of rain is expected to have fallen in the area.

The expected rainfall may cause flooding of smaller creeks and streams.

The area also is under a wind advisory, with sustained winds of 15 to 25 mph possible and gusts could be up to 40 mph.

The Broad River is expected to reach flood levels this afternoon, and areas of York County near the river are under a flood warning.

Drivers are cautioned not to drive their vehicles into areas where water covers a road.

Officials at York County's Emergency Operations Center say there's no major storm damage in the area. However, they are seeing a lot of minor incidents, including downed power lines and crashes.

“We're watching the runoff as good as we can,” said Cotton Howell, director of York County Emergency Management. “People knew the storm was coming. People have taken heed – especially during heavy rains Wednesday morning and yesterday. For this type of weather, we're very pleased with what we've seen.”

Not many lost power, Howell said. York Electric Co-op had about 200 power outages and Duke Energy reported about 50 outages during the storm.

Chester County Emergency Management reported a few few small problems this morning, but director Eddie Murphy said they had a scare Tuesday night when the storm knocked out power at the hospital around 5 p.m. Back up generators helped to power the hospital during the hour-long outage, Murphy said.

Got pictures of storm damage?

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