Skies open, roads close, airport stalls

This story was updated at 9:30 a.m.

A historic deluge on Sunday turned roads into rivers across the region, submerging cars, swelling rivers, and disrupting travel on the ground and in the air into Monday morning.

A 21-year-old woman died Sunday night when she drove into the Schuylkill while swerving to avoid another vehicle on Kelly Drive near Boathouse Row during a downpour, police said. A male passenger swam to safety.

A record 8.02 inches was recorded at Philadelphia's International Airport in just a few hours on Sunday, with nearly another quarter inch falling early Monday. Sunday's total easily surpassed the previous record for a single day, 6.6 inches, set by Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Problems caused by flooding persisted into Monday morning on some roadways and at Philadelphia International Airport, where water in an access tunnel cut power at Terminal A East.

The unsettled weather also kept some planes on the runways and led to delays in departures and arrivals.

The Airport advised passengers scheduled to fly today on American Airlines to call 1-800-446-7834 for flight information. Other passengers were being advised to check their flight status with their airline or to call the airport's toll-free information line at 1-800-745-4283.

The rain caused considerable aggravation Sunday. The fast-rising water closed roads and submerged cars in Camden and Gloucester City, and snarled traffic on Routes 295 and 42, critical arteries on a summer weekend.

"When I tried to turn a couple corners in Camden, the intersections were seriously flooded," said Ted Marvel, who was trying to get home to Collingswood after a soggy day at the waterfront XPoNential Music Festival. "It was deep and it was coming over people's [car] grilles."

The downpours came in a narrow band of storms from the southwest that disproportionately punished some towns but left others unscathed.

"Areas 20 miles to the west hardly got anything," said Mitchell Gaines, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. As the rain eased in most of the area by evening, his office in Mount Holly had logged only half an inch.

In Gloucester City, a stretch of Route 130 under Route 295 was "completely flooded" and had cars submerged, according to police scanners. A part of Route 130 in the same area remained under water Monday morning.

The Cooper River began flooding by early Sunday evening, according to the National Weather Service. That was before a second wave of storms arrived.

"We still have major traffic problems [and] quite a few accidents," a Gloucester County police dispatcher said just before 10 p.m.

In Paulsboro, Police Chief Chris Wachter said the rain had closed roads and flooded some houses. But there were no injuries, he said, and the damage was not serious.

SEPTA and PATCO reported minor flooding - SEPTA at the concourse in the 15th Street subway station, and PATCO at Ferry Avenue station, where the parking lots were temporarily closed.

After the storm comes the calm: Monday and Tuesday are forecast to be seasonably sunny and comfortable.