Swimmers hoping to get a head start on Labor Day weekend at Mauch Chunk Lake Park in Carbon County are out of luck.

Wednesday’s torrential downpours led Carbon County Commissioners to close the swimming area of the park on Thursday and Friday, giving the water a chance to recede.

“Normally, what happens when we have this amount of rain, you get a ton of runoff and then we have to test the water,” Commissioner Wayne Nothstein said on Thursday morning. “We’ll have test results by Friday afternoon, but the board was in agreement because of all the runoff and things from the woods, from the animals, and everything else, that we’ll probably have a high bacteria count so we’re better off just closing Thursday and Friday and not even waiting for test results.”

Pictures of the beach on Thursday morning showed the bottom of lifeguard stands submerged in water. Commissioners said the two-day closure was done in the interest of safety.

“This was the best thing, both for our lifeguards and our visitors,” Nothstein said.

The county instituted an emergency disaster declaration on Wednesday afternoon. It was submitted to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and ratified during Thursday’s commissioners meeting.

“Numerous fire departments were out most of the night pumping basements,” Nothstein said. “We had one vehicle rescue this morning. Fortunately it wasn’t real bad and person was not injured, but these are the things that happen when we have a major event such as this. Looking at the rain gauge, the Lehigh River was projected to peak out at about 10.6 feet and it peaked out this morning around 1 a.m. at 14.11 feet, which is the beginning of major flooding.”

Nothstein said it remained to be seen whether a state or federal disaster declaration would take place for Pennsylvania.