Mid-Atlantic - MDT may be flooded

I flew out of MDT this morning. The Susquehanna River flows past the airport. The airport has levees along the river. As we took off I could see that the river was within a few feet of topping the levees. The water level was clearly higher than the runway by several feet. The airport was flooded by the river due to hurricane Agnes in 1972.

Since the river will continue to rise for at least the next 24 to 36 hours there is a strong chance that the airport may flood.

So if you have travel scheduled into, out of, or through MDT in the next few days I recommend that you consider changing your plans.

CB

Airport officials are predicting little impact to operations:

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/09/harrisburg_international_airpo_18.html

If you have plans in the MDT area in the next few days, you probably do want to reconsider. While getting in and out of MDT may not be impacted, they've started evacuating portions of the city, Hersheypark is closed, much of Hershey is flooded (and is on a conserve water request, because one of their wastewater treatment plants is submerged and won't be operational for at least a week), and it's rather crazy trying to get around the area.