NEWS INFORMATION FROM

THE OFFICE OF MAYOR STEPHEN R. REED
City of Harrisburg
King City Government Center
Harrisburg, PA 17101-1678
Telephone: 717.255.3040

FOR IMMEDIATE USE
19 September 2003

WATER RESCUE TASK FORCE ACTIVATED FOR DUTY IN MARYLAND; WATER TREATMENT PLANT LOSES ELECTRICAL POWER; STORM-RELATED OPERATIONS CONTINUE

Harrisburg, PA—Mayor Stephen R. Reed reported this morning that teams from the Pennsylvania Water Rescue Strike Force are being dispatched to Baltimore County, Maryland to assist that county in the wake of extensive flooding from Tropical Storm Isabel. Their help was requested by the State of Maryland and the teams will be in the Baltimore area by or before dawn and remain for as long as needed. Over 500,000 people are without electrical power in that area.

Their deployment is in addition to teams from Pennsylvania Task Force One, the federally certified search and rescue operation, being placed in Huntingdon County, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and Philadelphia, which occurred Thursday evening.

There remain additional water rescue teams in the Harrisburg area to assure this area has coverage but no major flooding here is expected.

In another storm-related matter, the Mayor reported that electrical power to the city’s water treatment and filtration plant, which serves all or parts of 5 municipalities, went out late Thursday night but is expected to be back to normal operating condition by dawn. The plant treats, filters and then pumps drinking water to holding tanks and an underground reservoir in Reservoir Park, from which the water is then distributed by gravity flow to customers. The Reservoir Park facilities have a 4-day supply of water in place, so the power outage had zero effect on any customer.

City Police, fire parks maintenance and public works crews continue to respond to large numbers of calls for downed trees, limbs and power lines. Some buildings have been damaged by wind and water, and others sustained tree damage. Some minor flooding has occurred, and three city neighborhoods lost all power. Until winds die down by late morning, more calls like these are expected.

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