Recovery efforts in the aftermath of flooding from Tropical Storm Lee focused Monday on reopening roads and bridges, cleaning the grimy layer of mud left by receding waters and tallying millions of dollars in damage wrought by days of drenching rains last week.
For people in riverside towns prone to flooding, it felt familiar.
"The long haul now will be the money thing, the estimating, the recording, getting estimates on different things," said Mayor Norm Ball of Tunkhannock, a northeastern Pennsylvania town where parts of the business district were inundated by high waters from the Susquehanna River and tributaries. "It's quite a process; I've dealt with it before."
In Pennsylvania, about 1,100 customers were without power, more than 200 roads remained closed and 18 state and local bridges had damage, with 64 more on a precautionary list, emergency officials said Monday.
The state was establishing a joint task force to coordinate recovery efforts, with disaster response centers to be located in affected areas.
The tentative statewide death toll dropped from 13 to 11, a change that the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency could not immediately explain. The figure may be revised again as death certificates are issued.
More than a foot of rain fell in many communities over the five-day period that ended Friday, said meteorologist Jason Krekeler of the National Weather Service in State College.
Harrisburg International Airport, which averages about 4 inches of rain in September, was deluged by 13.4 inches over that five-day period.
"One thing to keep in mind is, a lot of these areas were hit fairly hard by (Hurricane) Irene as well, with 3 to 4, 5 inches in some locations," he said.
Across the region, preliminary damage assessments were being conducted on the ground and by air because parts of the state are inaccessible, said Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency spokesman Cory Angell.
He urged people with losses to report them to their local governments because the dollar value factors into the state's eligibility for federal relief.
As a sign that life was starting to return to normal, the American Red Cross said Monday that only two or three evacuation shelters remained open, down from 16 on Saturday.
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