Remnants from Hurricane Debby prompted Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to sign a Proclamation of Disaster Emergency for 21 counties — and one of the results of that decision was the cancellation of the Eastern States 100 ultramarathon.

It is “with the utmost concern for the safety of our participants, their crews, pacers, and our dedicated volunteers, we regret to announce that this year’s event must be canceled,” race director Benjamin Mazur said. “While we know the disappointment this may bring, we encourage all those who were planning to attend to consider volunteering their time to support the many families affected by this emergency.”

The affected counties were under flash flood warnings and experienced heavy rain as what was left of the very slow-moving Debby made its way through Pennsylvania after hitting every state in the Southeast U.S. Mazur shared a video online of the finish line under 18 feet of water.

Eastern States was expected to bring in roughly 460 runners, not to mention all of the race volunteers who would be on site. Most come from the eastern part of the country, though the event included runners from Canada, Washington state, California and Arizona.

The emergency declaration was made Friday evening, and the race was scheduled to begin at 5 a.m. Saturday. However, there is no phone service or Wi-Fi at the race’s headquarters, so it seems likely that race officials spent the time after they heard about the declaration checking into how this would affect permits and weighing whether it would even be prudent from a safety standpoint to move forward with the event. The race starts and ends at Little Pin State Park and goes through significant sections of Tiadaghton and Sprout state forests and other managed wildlife areas. 

By Saturday evening, those still on site made the best of the situation, with one aid station crew organizing a picnic for runners and volunteers. “It was an awesome display of the trail running community we have here,” Mazur said.

One surprise beneficiary of this cancellation might be UTMB. The Grindstone Trail Running Festival is a UTMB event with a 100-mile distance that takes place in the Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia. Numerous people on social media inquired about what that race was like and whether that would make a good substitute for Eastern States. Grindstone takes place in about six weeks.