WINDHAM, N.Y. ? Northeastern residents still weary from the flooding wrought by Hurricane Irene braced Wednesday for the leftovers of Tropical Storm Lee, which brought welcome moisture to farmers in parched parts of the South on its slog northward.
New York positioned rescue workers, swift-water boats and helicopters with hoists to respond quickly in the event of flash flooding. Teams stood by in Vermont, which bore the brunt of Irene's remnants last week, and hundreds of Pennsylvania residents were told to flee a rising river.
"Everybody's on alert," said Dennis Michalski, spokesman for the New York Emergency Management Office. "The good thing is, the counties are on alert, as they were for Irene, and people are more conscious."
Lee formed just off the Louisiana coast late last week and gained strength as it lingered in the Gulf for a couple of days. It dumped more than a foot of rain in New Orleans, testing the city's pump system for the first time in years, and trudged across Mississippi and Alabama.
Tornadoes spawned by Lee damaged hundreds of homes, and flooding knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people. Trees were uprooted and roads were flooded. Winds fanned wildfires in Louisiana and Texas, and the storm even kicked up tar balls on the Gulf Coast. At least four people died.
By Tuesday, it had collided with a cold front, leaving much of the East with wet, unseasonably cool weather.
Heavy rain fell Wednesday morning on the already-battered town of Prattsville, on the northern edge of New York's Catskill Mountains, where residents were ready to evacuate as the Schoharie Creek escaped its banks and smaller streams showed significant flooding.
If a storm to the west moved east, where many people are still displaced after last week's deluge, Greene County chairman Wayne Speenburgh said, he'd give the order to evacuate.
"Our command center and recovery area could be in the flood plain," he said.
Flooding also led to voluntary evacuations in the Catskills town of Shandaken, and some schools in the Hudson Valley north of New York City closed or delayed start times.
In the rural Schoharie Valley west of Albany, officials were encouraging residents to find higher ground but hadn't yet ordered evacuations.
Along the road in Windham were several soggy, cardboard signs from last week's storm that said "Thank you for your help" and water turned red from the clay riverbed rushed over roads. As National Guard troops directed traffic, a crane dug into the upstream side of a culvert, trying to open it up to allow more water through.
"Now it's getting on my last nerves," said Carol Slater, 53, of Huntersfield, just outside Prattsville. She had left her job at a pharmaceutical company at 9 a.m. and was still not home three hours later as she navigated detours.
Manuel Gonzalez, 78, of Ashland has seen his barn flood several times in the past 10 days.
"We take it as it comes," he said. "It's all we can do. You can't just get discouraged."
A flood watch was in effect through Thursday afternoon in soggy Vermont. Parts of the state are still recovering from massive damage inflicted by floodwaters from the remnants of Irene, which was a tropical storm by the time it swept over the area.
Swift water rescue teams are on call, and residents should be ready to evacuate if rivers rise fast, said Vermont Emergency Management spokesman Mark Bosma.
Irene hit upstate New York and Vermont particularly hard, with at least 12 deaths in those areas and dozens of highways damaged or washed out. Several communities in Vermont were cut off entirely and required National Guard airdrops to get supplies.
In its trudge up the coast from the Carolinas to Maine, Irene was blamed for at least 46 deaths and billions of dollars in damage.
As the remnants of Lee spread over the area, flood watches or warnings were in place through Thursday night for much of Pennsylvania, where about 3,000 residents along the Solomon Creek in the city of Wilkes-Barre were ordered to evacuate due to quickly rising waters, but the creek began receding in the morning after cresting about 4 feet below flood stage. Rain from Irene also led to evacuations there last week.
Amtrak reported service disruptions in Pennsylvania between Philadelphia and Harrisburg because of fallen trees on the tracks and damage to the overhead power lines.
In New Jersey, where many residents were still cleaning up after Irene, the remnants of Lee were expected to drop anywhere from 2 to 5 inches of rain. Major flooding was forecast on Wednesday for the Passaic River, which breached its banks during Irene and caused serious damage.
On New York's Long Island, heavy rain and winds knocked out power to more than 9,000 utility customers for several hours on Tuesday.
More than 10 inches of rain had fallen by Tuesday in Chattanooga, Tenn., which had its driest August ever, with barely a drop of rain. The rain was a blessing for some farmers who had been forced to cut hay early and had seen their corn crop stunted by a summer drought.
"Obviously we would like to have this a while earlier," said Brant Crowder, who manages 600 acres of the McDonald Farm in the Sale Creek community north of Chattanooga, Tenn. "It's been hot and dry the last two months."
The soggy ground meant even modest winds toppled trees onto homes and cars. A Chattanooga woman died when a tree fell on her car, police said.
In suburban Atlanta, a man died after trying to cross a swollen creek near a dam. A swimmer was presumed dead in rough Gulf waters off Alabama, and another man drowned while trying to cross a swollen creek in a car.
In Gulf Shores, Ala., chunks of tar as large as baseballs washed up on the beach. Samples were being sent for testing to determine if they were from last year's BP oil spill.
Meanwhile, in the open Atlantic, Hurricane Katia brought rough surf to the East Coast but was not expected to make landfall in the U.S. Tropical Storm Maria also formed Wednesday far out in the Atlantic, but it was too soon to tell if and where it might make landfall.
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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Michael Hill in Albany, N.Y.; John Curran in Montpelier, Vt.; and Genaro C. Armas in State College, Pa.; and Bill Poovey in Chattanooga.
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