Relief for Starving Philadelphia Beetles : Record 6-Inch Rain Swamps East Coast

A storm front moved over the East Coast on Friday, dumping more than 6 inches of rain on North Carolina and rescuing green-backed beetles from the heat on the streets of Philadelphia.

The sprawling storm system that stretched from New Jersey to northern Florida and across the Gulf states was the same system that brought rain to the drought-parched Farm Belt earlier in the week before stalling over the East Coast, forecasters said.

A record 6.49 inches of rain fell Friday in Wilmington, N.C., breaking a record set in 1877 and flooding streets and highways.

“Everything was OK until about 8:30 a.m.,” Wilmington police Sergeant D. A. Hollifield said. “And then the bottom fell out. We’ve been needing rain, but not this much, all at once. We got a lot of water on the roads.”

Fire Department Active

In Charlotte, N.C., where more than an inch of rain fell in 30 minutes, the Fire Department responded to 70 calls--three times the normal number.

“It was a combination of wrecks, alarm systems going off, lightning striking houses, power lines down across the road,” fire communications spokesman Mike Simpson said. He said two houses burned and about 2,000 customers were without electricity.

Doug Clark, who tends 1,000 acres of Christmas trees in Avery County, rose early Friday to enjoy walking in his muddy fields.

“It tickled me to death,” Clark said. “When you’re so dry and you haven’t had any rain and you finally get it, it’s like manna from heaven. We’ve got places out here that haven’t had a drop of rain since June 1, and that was just a little dab.”

In Philadelphia, where a record one-day rainfall of 3.45 inches fell Thursday, cooler temperatures that followed the storm system came to the rescue of some bugs that scientists said are related to the Japanese beetle.

Beetles Fall From Sky

The beetles, wilted by recent record heat and starved by the drought that cut their supply of flowers, have been falling from the skies and littering city streets.

“It’s (been) very hot here,” said Gose Samtistebam, a Peruvian insect expert working at Philadelphia’s Academy of Science. “They are not supposed to be in such a hot place. The streets are very hot, and they are so close to the ground. There is not enough food.”

In the Midwest, widely scattered thunderstorms carried briefly heavy rain over northern Indiana, western Ohio and Lower Michigan, where some Kalamazoo streets were reported flooded, the National Weather Service said.

Hot, dry weather blanketed most of the western half of the nation Friday, as dry conditions returned to the plains, where forecasters said no rain was in sight.