Countless basements were flooded, and roads closed, after Tuesday’s storm dropped 2 to 3 inches of rain throughout much of the region.

The onslaught of rain has caused all kinds of inconveniences for homeowners who posted their basements were engulfed with water after their sump pumps couldn’t keep up.

Bambi Elsasser, who lives on Ashtown Drive, Mahoning Township, said they have five sump pumps, including their regular one and four portable ones, and are barely keeping up

“Lots of water, constant monitoring, things like that,” Elsasser said. “Probably about 5 inches right now, hoses going down through the yard.”

Leanne Holly, of Franklin Township, said “the water is coming up from the foundation.”

“Pump is working but not able to keep up,” Holly said. “What a mess.”

Sandy Wentz, of Bowmanstown, said the water “is steadily coming in and the sump pump is kicking in about every minute.

“This is more than we usually have when it rains,” Wentz said. “We pray the power doesn’t go out.”

Patricia DeFrehn Gourley, of Lehighton, said she was cleaning with a Shop-vac.

“So far, 8 gallons,” she said. “Want to keep up with it because if the power shuts off, then I can’t vacuum.”

Pam Schaeffer, of Lehighton, said her house was built in 1820 “and we have a literal stream running through.”

Kelly Souders, of Coaldale, said her floor is covered, but about an inch to 2 inches

Joseph Kosalko, of Summit Hill, said there was 2.38 inches of rain on Bugzie’s Mountain.

Lou Accardi, owner of Home Comfort Solutions in Lehighton, said his business has been extremely busy.

“Pretty much started last night around midnight; calls have been consistent, getting tagged on Facebook, and emails,” Accardi said. ”A lot of people, there’s so much water they have to turn to (their) fire department to pump it out before we can even respond; some of them are completely flooded at this time, some people didn’t have power.”

Accardi noted that it could take two days to a week until everyone gets everything working property in the area.

“There’s only so many contractors; when something like this happens, it spreads the industry thin everywhere,” he said. “We’re scrambling, all of us are, because next week at night it’s supposed to get down to 10 and 20 degrees, so we want to take care of everyone before the extreme cold comes next week.”

Tom Kines, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather, said most areas had between 2.5 to 3.5 inches of rain.

“Definitely unusual to get that amount of rain over the course of 24 hours,” Kines said. “Close to a month’s worth of rain in 24 hours.”

Kines explained the primary effects that resulted.

“The most impactful has been water in basements, small creeks overflowing their banks, contributing to road closures, and drainage systems in general, runways in general not being able to handle that much rain,” he said. “It gets all backed up, which also contributed to road closures.”

Kines said there’s another storm to be concerned about, the brunt of which is expected to hit later Friday into Friday night that could feature another round of heavy rain coming into the area.

“It’s not out of the question at the beginning there could be some frozen precipitation; the majority of the storm is going to be liquid, some of that rain could certainly be heavy,” he said. “The creeks and streams, while they will settle down some, they’re not going to have a chance to get all the way down to where they should be.”

Kines added that when this next storm comes in, “it kind of looks like streams and creeks will be starting off a little bit higher; that alone raises the red flag, got to watch out for more flooding.”

“If you had water in your basement from the last one, I think you got to be prepared for that again.”

Kines said temperatures should be in the lower 40s by late in the day Friday, and for the most part stay in the 40s Friday night.

After the storm gets by us Saturday, colder air comes in, and temperatures could fall back into the 30s by Saturday afternoon.

“Think this next storm that we’re concerned about, rain amount wise, probably looking at least an inch, inch-and-a-half (of rain),” he said. “I think there will be some wind accompanying this storm, most likely Friday night, probably talking 20-30 mph, might be enough to bring down some branches.

“With the soil as saturated as it is, it won’t take a whole lot of wind to maybe push some trees in a leaning direction, not totally over. I don’t know that the winds will do that, (but) there’s the potential.”

Kines said one difference with the storm to come is that it isn’t out of the question that Sunday or maybe early next week, there’s a day where temperatures won’t get above 30.

“With the colder air coming in behind the storm Friday night, it’s not out of the question that there’s a storm early next week that we’d get snow,” he said.