Flooding besets region; more rain in forecast

With rain-swollen rivers still dangerously above flood level throughout Northeastern Massachusetts, water-weary residents began to take stock yesterday of damage to homes, businesses, and communities and braced for new problems.

Some of the most serious flooding to hit the state in 70 years has plagued dozens of cities and towns, particularly in the Merrimack Valley, with more than 1,500 people leaving their homes, millions of gallons of raw sewage pouring into the Merrimack River, and emergency officials warning that the worst might lie ahead.

The National Weather Service warned that dangerously high rivers, such as the Merrimack and Spicket, were not scheduled to crest until last evening and early this morning and that most of them would recede very slowly. More rain was expected to fall north of Boston again last night, adding about another inch of precipitation to three-day totals that had been exceeded only once in the last century.

''It's going to get worse before it gets better," Governor Mitt Romney said yesterday afternoon after touring the hard-hit Merrimack Valley. ''This is a level of crisis which is beyond anything these communities have ever experienced from water in their history."

Since Friday, 12.64 inches of rain had fallen in Rockport by 4 p.m. yesterday, according to the National Weather Service. In Topsfield, the total was 11.95 inches; in Gloucester, it was 11.75.

Romney said he would ask the federal government to declare the state a disaster area, predicting that the flooding's cost would easily surpass the $7 million threshold needed for US aid.

The governor said 35 million gallons of sewage had entered the Merrimack River by yesterday afternoon because of a break in the main sewage line in Haverhill. Officials feared that problem would become much worse because a transformer for a regional waste-water facility in North Andover had been flooded, threatening to spill 115 million gallons of sewage a day into the river.

National Guard troops, many of them veterans of the Iraq war, enforced roadblocks and filled sandbags. The US Army Corps of Engineers helped monitor dams. And rescue teams in Essex County and northeastern parts of Middlesex County took to boats to ferry residents to dry ground.

''This has been the worst flood that I've been through," said Peabody Fire Chief Steven Pasdon.

''In terms of Saugus, it is a catastrophe," said Saugus Town Administrator Andrew Bisignani.

Flooding also fouled the commute, closing Route 1 in Saugus in both directions yesterday and forcing drivers from the North Shore and nearby communities to use Route 128 and Interstate 93 to reach and leave their jobs in Boston. As a result, 14 miles of Route 128 became a sodden stretch of nerve-fraying gridlock for much of the day.

No deaths or serious injuries had been reported by last night. ''We still have a few more days of dealing with this," said Peter Judge, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

The problems throughout the region were many. Here is a compilation:

The rain overwhelmed sewer systems in at least seven communities, leading to a major spill in the Merrimack River and backing up sewage systems that pushed contaminated water into homes, businesses, and roadways.

''The sewer industry in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire is under siege," said Fred Laskey, executive director of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, speaking yesterday at the massive treatment plant at Deer Island in Winthrop. ''We've been at full capacity here for about 48 hours; that's 1.3 billion gallons per day. On an average day, we treat 350 million gallons a day. . . . We're hanging on by our fingernails and hope to get through it."

Overflows occurred in Melrose, Haverhill, Swampscott, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Saugus, Woburn, and Lowell.

The sewage spills and runoff from streets are raising concerns about contamination of drinking water, particularly in Lowell and Tewksbury, state officials said. Clean water supplies in those communities are available for 24 hours, Romney said, in case residents need assistance.

State officials will monitor the quality of river water, but residents are being cautioned to stay out of the Merrimack River and away from standing water in their streets. Shellfish beds and marine life along the river could also be threatened by sewage flowing downstream.

In Saugus, manhole covers popped off all over town, sending the main pumping station on Lincoln Avenue into overdrive, and prompting the discharge of about 4 to 6 million gallons of untreated sewage and storm runoff directly into the Saugus River. The state allows such discharge only in extreme conditions. Bisignani, the town administrator, estimated that ''99.9 percent" of the untreated flow was composed of rain water.

Safety officials estimated last evening that 1,500 to 2,500 people from 17 cities and towns statewide had left their homes, most of them in the Merrimack River Valley. Mayor William Manzi of Methuen said 400 residents had been ordered yesterday afternoon to leave a downtown apartment complex near the dangerously surging Merrimack and Spicket rivers.

Officials urged residents to leave their homes on the banks of the Spicket River before nightfall made evacuations more difficult.

''The dam's 150 years old. If that let go, that would be devastation for the downtown," said Matthew Kraunelis, the Methuen mayor's chief of staff.

In Haverhill, buses were used to transport about 100 residents of the Bethany Homes Senior Center to safer quarters. In Peabody, the Fire Department and National Guard helped 250 people to move away from the flood threat.

And in Lawrence, about 200 people left two neighborhoods of the city, one near North Andover and one near Methuen. Many of the residents found shelter at the Methuen High School fieldhouse. Water rescues continued in the Merrimack Valley yesterday. ''We're trying to stay proactive and encourage people to get to higher ground," said Myles Burke, an aide to Mayor Michael Sullivan.

Flooding made driving an exercise in frustration and creativity yesterday as hundreds of roads were closed throughout the region. In Topsfield, Highway Superintendent David Bond said motorists had only one way in or out of town.

The state closed sections of more than a dozen highways yesterday, and officials predicted lingering disruptions for today and possibly longer.

Jeff Larson, general manager of SmartRoute Systems, said he could not recall more severe traffic problems caused by rain and flooding during a weekday commute. The Route 1 closing, he said, had a huge effect, as motorists scrambled to find alternate roads and possibly encountered additional closings on secondary roads.

Mike King of the SmartRoute operations center estimated that commuters spent twice as much time on the Boston commute yesterday as they normally would.

The storm played havoc with the area's economy, disrupting thousands of businesses that lost customers because of flooded parking lots and closed roads.

Mary Ann Rogers, executive assistant of the North Chamber of Commerce/Route 1 Advisory Business Association, said the shutdown of Route 1 forced the closure of more than 100 businesses in the Saugus stretch of the highway.

Heavy flooding caused by the swollen Saugus River, which swept onto Route 1, forced the Prince Pizzeria & Bar to close. ''It's unbelievable," said Tricia Castraberti, wife of owner Steve Castraberti. ''You can paddle a canoe around the parking lot. No one has ever seen it this bad."

Peabody officials estimated that 300 businesses had been adversely affected by the rain, where the downtown area had been transformed into a small pond.

More than a dozen school systems canceled classes yesterday, forcing many to postpone high-stakes MCAS testing and instead open their gymnasiums and cafeterias to those seeking shelter.

In Lawrence, the Spicket River flooded the boiler room at the James F. Leonard School with 5 feet of water. In Methuen, school bus routes were under water and dozens of residents were taken to the high school on Ranger Road.

The flooding interrupted testing from elementary schools to colleges. Statewide elementary and middle schools were supposed to start MCAS testing this week or next. Some colleges were holding final exams.

Lawrence, Lowell, Methuen, and nearby Haverhill canceled classes again for today. The University of Massachusetts at Lowell closed at 3 p.m. yesterday and will be closed all day today; final exams will be rescheduled for Friday and Saturday.

Middlesex Community College, with a campus in Lowell, is also closed today and will reschedule classes. In Methuen, schools were untouched by the floodwaters, but the high school quickly turned into a refuge. Outside the hardest-hit areas in Essex and Middlesex counties, many school systems were unaffected. Boston and Brockton, for example, held classes as usual.

Michael Levenson, Mac Daniel, John R. Ellement, Steven A. Rosenberg, Kathy McCabe, and Maria Sacchetti of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Caroline Louise Cole contributed to this report.