Even as residents of "ground zero" for power outages recovered from the last week's punishing snowstorms, their fears turned to the potential for disastrous flooding.

"We have to pray for a slow thaw," said Elizabeth Borough police Officer in Charge John H. Snelson. "Otherwise we'll be in more trouble."

Rep. Tim Murphy on Thursday and Friday toured Monongahela river towns such as Elizabeth and Forward, where many people still had no power.

"Just with the topography of the area, you can see why this is ground zero," Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, said after leaving Forward. "They just had the worst of the worst, in regards to roads being closed and trees being knocked down onto power lines. ... Now the concern is that as the snow starts to melt, we could see flooding, mudslides, and trees that are currently leaning may fall.

"We're not out of the woods on this at all," he said.

Indeed, conditions are similar to those that preceded the January floods of 1996, officials from the Army Corps of Engineers and National Weather Service said.

That year, the snowpack ranged from 9 to 24 inches. Then temperatures rose to the 60s, even in the mountains, and rain combined with snowmelt to create dangerous conditions. Pittsburgh alone incurred millions of dollars in damage when the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers crested about 10 feet over flood stage within 5 hours of each other, according to the Corps and city data.

This year, the snowpack ranges from 12 to 28 inches, but virtually none of it is melting yet, said Bob Davis, who studies flooding for the National Weather Service in Moon, and Werner Loehlein, chief of water management at the Corps. Snow levels are lower in mountain areas that feed the Allegheny, but temperatures likely will stay below freezing for the next 10 days, meaning snow could pile up there, too, Davis said.

"We usually warm up a couple days and melt some snow before we get the next one. But we haven't melted anything this time," Davis said. "The fact that we haven't melted anything around here is the odd thing this time. ... It just keeps piling up and there's no place to put it, and that could be the problem."

In Elizabeth, snow removal crews are putting it anywhere they can -- in parks, ballfields and empty lots, officials said.

"The police chief said he's putting it in my driveway," said Phyllis Thompson, 56, who owns Thompson's Convenience Store on Third Avenue. "I wouldn't know because I haven't been home since the storm started. I've got no power, so I've been staying with my sister here in town."

She's not alone. Since the storm began Feb. 5, many borough residents have faced challenging conditions.

When the police station and municipal buildings lost power the first day of the storm, they set up makeshift offices in the bingo hall.

As early as Saturday, council members, firefighters and police started going door-to-door to check on seniors and people with medical conditions, and offering to move them to warming centers. Others gathered at Thompson's for coffee and deli sandwiches, and to hear the latest news on cleanup efforts.

"We're all very tired," said Snelson, who spent days without power. "I've been home 5 minutes here and there, just to grab a pair of dry boots -- if I can find them in the dark."

In neighboring Bunola, Ron Trumpie said power cut off Feb. 5, flickered on and off a few times during the week, and returned for good only yesterday. He had a black eye -- Trumpie said he fell down a stairwell in his brother's house while walking through the dark -- but his spirits improved once the electricity came back on.

"It was horrific," he said. "By Tuesday we had a generator, so people came down here to stay warm and get showered. But before that, it was just me and my three dogs (in the basement) with a wood-burner."

Like others in the Mon Valley, Trumpie said he checked on his neighbors often, including two elderly women who shoveled out their car just so they could turn it on and warm up inside.

"There ain't nothing you can do about it but thank God for neighbors," he said. "This is when people join together. During a disaster -- and I call this a disaster -- you have to, just to survive."

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