Six people were evacuated from a Rock Hill office building and three motorists in Lancaster were freed from sinking cars on Monday after heavy rainfall pummeled York and Lancaster counties, causing flash flooding that shut down roads and overflowed into some buildings.

No injuries were reported. There also weren’t any delays or closures for local schools, and none are planned for Tuesday.

By Monday evening, Lancaster County emergency officials had braced for more flooding and heavy rain that meteorologists estimated would continue into today.

“More rain is on the way,” said James Oh, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. He said an unstable air mass will drop one to two inches of rain on York, Chester and Lancaster counties.

The Weather Service predicted that the three counties would see heavy rain and severe thunderstorms throughout today. Along with those thunderstorms is a “slight risk” of tornadoes or very strong winds, Oh said.

A cold front developing near the Gulf of Mexico will catch up with heavier rain in Tennessee and push it “into our neck of the woods,” said Tom Kines, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.

The rain is expected to taper off Tuesday, but not before it unleashes “another round of bad weather” on the region, Kines said.

Early Monday morning, Oh said, atmospheric instability sparked a deluge that caused intense flooding in Lancaster County, resulting in road closures and overflowing creeks and rivers.

The county saw four to six inches of rainfall total within just a couple of hours, he said.

Before daybreak Monday, officials had issued a flash-flood warning for Lancaster County because some motorists who couldn’t see the water drove their cars into the oncoming flood, said Fire Marshal Stephen Blackwelder.

A similar alert was issued to residents in York County around 7:45 a.m., followed by an advisory warning residents of possible city street and small creek flooding.

Many of Lancaster County’s roads were blocked as the waters continued to rise. County and city rescue crews worked together to rescue three motorists stranded in their cars. One was waiting on top of a car after getting caught in rising water and the car itself started to flood, Blackwelder said.

By 9 a.m., the rain stopped falling in Lancaster, but officials were still bracing for flood waters they knew would move downstream into the city.

Lancaster Fire Chief Chuck Small said fire officials were monitoring the floodwaters throughout the day and hadn’t planned to mandate evacuations.

Many of the roads closed Monday – including Gills Creek Drive, Doster Road and Carnes Wilson Road – would remain closed for the next couple of days, Lancaster County emergency management director Morris Russell said.

Most of those roads have been washed out, he said, although they still have entry points and exits.

In Rock Hill, fire crews were dispatched to the Citizen building on East Main Street shortly before 10 a.m. Monday when the water drains on the roof of the building clogged, said Rock Hill Fire Department Battalion Chief Ben Funderburk.

The stopped-up drains caused water to overflow into the building, he said, damaging parts of the fifth and sixth floors and the elevator.

With wires exposed to water, fire crews decided to shut off power to the building.

Employees with HDR Engineering, an engineering consulting firm with offices in Charlotte, were evacuated from the fourth floor, said Hisham Abdelaziz, an engineer with HDR.

City spokeswoman Katie Quinn said employees with the city’s economic and urban development department also were evacuated from the offices they occupy on the fifth floor.

After an inspection by the building’s owners, Barwick & Associates of Charlotte, the building reopened, power was back on and employees returned to work, said Bryan Barwick, company president.

The Citizen Corners restaurant opened as scheduled.

Jonathan McFadden803-329-4082