East Coast soaked by fierce nor’easter rains

In Westchester County, north of New York City, all public schools were closed Monday. Cars were stalled in water on numerous roads and several major highways were closed at times by flooding.

Hundreds of people were briefly evacuated from their homes in southern West Virginia as crews worked to pump water from a private lake near Hamlin to keep an unstable earthen dam from collapsing.

Had the dam burst, millions of gallons of water could pour into Hamlin, Mayor Brian Barrett said Monday.

Fierce wind toppled trees onto a northern New Hampshire highway as Bob Eastman was driving through on Monday morning. “It was a wonder it didn’t blow you off the road,” he said.

Eastman said highways crew used chain saws and snowplows to remove the fallen trees.

In southeastern New Hampshire, parts of downtown Newmarket were evacuated because of flooding.

In Union City, N.J., a large section of a 4-foot-thick, 50-foot-high stone wall collapsed onto a busy road during the night, and rescue workers used heavy machinery and dogs Monday to see if any cars had been buried. “There could be, and that’s the assumption we have to operate under,” said David Curtis, deputy chief of North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue.

An apartment building atop the wall was evacuated.

Boston Marathon still held
The storm gave about 20,000 runners in Monday’s Boston Marathon something to worry about besides Heartbreak Hill as the course was doused with several inches of rain driven by wind gusting to more than 30 mph.

“When you live in the Northeast, you’ve got to respect this kind of weather,” said marathoner Rob Comitz, 31, from Harleysville, Pa.

In Maine, however, Portland called off its Patriot’s Day 5-Miler race for the first time in 78 years, because police were too busy with flooding, downed trees and power outage to secure the race route.

MORE FROM WEATHER

Weather Section Front

Ida weakens, but Gulf Coast prepares Salvadoran town hit by landslide buries dead   Tornado rakes Oregon coastal town 200,000 see homes flooded in Mexico   Watch 3-day national forecast Drought worsens water woes in Venezuela   Stormy messes in Australia, Canada Weather Section Front   Add Weather headlines to your news reader: