Ida brings ‘historic’ floods to New York area; at least 22 dead
NEW YORK: A stunned US east coast woke up Thursday to at least 22 left dead, surging rivers and destruction after the remnants of Hurricane Ida walloped through New York and nearby areas with record-breaking rain, filling low-lying apartments with water and turning roads into car-swallowing canals.
In a region that had been warned about potentially deadly flash flooding but hadn’t braced for such a blow from the no-longer-hurricane, the storm killed at least 22 people from Maryland to New York on Wednesday night and Thursday.
Nine people died in New York City, police said, one of them in a car and eight in flooded basement apartments that often serve as relatively affordable homes for low-income people. Officials said at least eight died in New Jersey and three in Pennsylvania’s suburban Montgomery County; one was killed by a falling tree, one drowned in a car and another in a home.
In New York City, Deborah Torres said water rapidly filled her first-floor Queens apartment to her knees as her landlord frantically urged her neighbours below to get out, she said.
But the water was rushing in so strongly that she surmised they weren’t able to open the door.
“I have no words,” she said. “How can something like this happen? And the worst is that there’s a family downstairs with a baby, and they couldn’t get out.”
The National Hurricane Center had warned since Tuesday of the potential for “significant and life-threatening flash flooding” and moderate and major river flooding in the mid-Atlantic region and New England.
Still, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the storm’s strength took them by surprise.
“We did not know that between 8.50 and 9.50 pm last night, that the heavens would literally open up and bring Niagara Falls level of water to the streets of New York,” said Hochul, a Democrat who became governor last week after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned.
De Blasio said he’d gotten a forecast Wednesday of 7.5cm to 15cm of rain over the course of the day. The city’s Central Park ended up getting about 9cm just in one hour of the deluge, surpassing the previous recorded high of 5cm in one hour during Tropical Storm Henri on August 21.
Water cascaded into subway tunnels, trapping at least 17 trains and forcing the cancelation of service throughout the night and early morning.
Videos online showed riders standing on seats in cars filled with water. All riders were evacuated, officials said.
The storm also spawned tornadoes, including one that ripped apart homes and toppled silos in New Jersey. Rescues took place all over New York City as its 8.8 million people saw much worse flooding than from Henri, which was followed by two weeks of wild and sometimes deadly weather across the nation.