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The crane squatted like a fat, orange-and-black bug in what looked like a muddy brown pond, water covering its treads and lapping gently at the doors.
Before the rains came, it had been at rest in a dusty field not far from Newport's town center.
In nearby Stanton, the Delaware Park practice track was covered in water, although the adjacent racetrack appeared little more than damp.
The sand traps at a neighboring golf course were flooded. The fairways looked dry, but there was standing water on some of the greens.
It rained on and off in New Castle County from late Friday night -- when the first thunderstorm broke at about 10 p.m. -- through early Wednesday morning.
On Wednesday, Delaware's northern county was drying out in the afternoon sunlight, although rains in New York and Pennsylvania were filling the Schuylkill, Susquehanna and Delaware rivers -- threatening flooding and evacuations along New Castle County's border with the Delaware River.
How much rain fell in New Castle between Friday night and Wednesday morning depends where you were standing and when. Weather officials say the fast-moving storms skipped some neighborhoods and drenched others, some more than once.
That was apparent Wednesday afternoon. Flying over the county, beneath white-and-black clouds, it was easy to pick out the neighborhoods that were hardest-hit and those that had been spared.
Newport, Stanton, parts of Hockessin and Yorklyn had flooded fields and evidence of the intermittent storms, for example. There were long trails of dirt and gravel across some streets, indicating spots where creeks had run over their banks and briefly flooded roadways.
Seen from a height of 500 feet, many fields in and around those communities had that curiously smashed look they get when tons of water sits on them for hours before slowly seeping into the ground.
The parking lots of Shone Lumber on Del. 7 in Stanton and the nearby Love of Christ Church were flooded, their surfaces reflecting the clouds overhead. No cars moved through them, although on Kirkwood Highway and I-95, traffic was in full roar.
Red Clay Creek had spilled over its banks during the storms. Wednesday, it was a reddish-brown scar on the land as it crossed acres of green fields, and flowed past rows of neatly planned homes and through thick stands of trees. Here and there, flashes of muddy brown water were visible on what is normally a forest floor.
The Christiana River was equally muddy as it flowed into Wilmington. A few boats made their way unhurriedly up the river in the early afternoon; coffee-and-cream-colored wakes trailing behind them.
Now and then a cloud bank passed between the sun and the river, changing the color of the river's reddish-brown water into something darker.
According to the National Weather Service, those clouds won't move on very quickly.
Forecasters say there is a 40 percent chance of more rain this afternoon and evening.
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