Dozens dead as rains inundate New York area
Family drowns inside basement apartment
• A family was killed in New York when they became trapped in their basement apartment Thursday after remnants of Hurricane Ida brought “historic” flash flooding across the U.S. northeast.
Record rainfall in the New York City area on Wednesday night killed dozens of people in what was called a “once-in-a-500-year” weather event.
Hundreds of flights were cancelled at Laguardia and JFK airports, as well as at Newark, where video showed a terminal inundated by rainwater. The entire subway system was suspended after stations became submerged.
Hurricane Ida’s remnants brought 15 to 20 cm of rain to a swath of the northeast from Philadelphia to Connecticut and set an hourly record of 3.15 inches for Manhattan, breaking the previous one that was set less than two weeks ago, the National Weather Service said.
The 7.13 inches of rain that fell in New York City on Wednesday was the city’s fifth highest daily amount, it said.
The flash flooding, which marked the tail end of Ida, transformed familiar scenes of bustling New York life into otherworldly and waterlogged chaos.
Footage emerged of streets turned into rivers, with cars floating down major highways and rats swimming to reach higher ground. Indoor fixtures at the U.S. Open tennis tournament had to be called off.
A New York City police spokesman says eight people died when they became trapped in flooded basements.
Police found a 50-year-old man, 48-year-old woman and their two-year-old son dead inside their basement apartment in Queens, which had filled up with fast-moving water.
Three more people were discovered dead hours later in a nearby building. A local official said the apartments were illegally converted living spaces.
The New York Police Department were sent to their homes when family and friends called 911, saying they could not be located. “We ask all New Yorkers to check on neighbours and loved ones, especially those who are elderly or disabled, along with those living in flood-prone locations and basements,” the NYPD urged.
Recovery efforts were under way to bring back transportation systems serving millions of residents in the metropolitan area.
Heavy wind and rain and at least one tornado also battered Pennsylvania and New Jersey, collapsing the roof of a U.S. postal service building and threatening to overrun a dam. In neighbouring Passaic, N.J., a man in his 70s died in his car after it became submerged.
Ravi Bhalla, the mayor of Hoboken, told CNN the destruction was on a par with Hurricane Irene, which killed 12 New Jersey residents in 2011.
There were reports of up to 36 dead in the tri-state area, a death toll higher than those killed in Louisiana, where Ida first made landfall three days earlier.
Parts of Louisiana and Mississippi have been left devastated by Ida, with flooded communities, knockedout power lines and roads littered with debris. As severe as the conditions were, climate scientists warn that they herald a new normal on a warmed planet, where hotter air holds more water, making hurricanes gather strength faster, tornadoes more widespread and rain heavier.
“Meteorologists are calling it a once in a 500-year event,” said Mark Levine, a N.Y.C. council member. “But, of course, that standard has to be entirely thrown out now. We are in uncharted territory. We are beyond not ready for climate change.”