Ida’s record rain leaves 49 dead in U.S. northeast
MAPLEWOOD: Flash flooding killed at least 49 people in four Northeastern states as remnants of Hurricane Ida unleashed torrential rains that swept away cars, submerged New York City subway lines and grounded airline flights, officials said on Thursday.
Across large swaths of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, residents spent the day coping with water-logged basements, power outages, damaged roofs and calls for help from friends and family members stranded by flooding.
At least 13 people lost their lives in New York City, along with three in suburban Westchester County. New Jersey governor Phil Murphy said in a tweet at least 23 people from that state had perished in the storm. Among the fatalities, three people were found dead in a basement in the New York City borough of Queens, while four residents of Elizabeth, New Jersey, died at a public housing complex flooded by 8 feet of water.
US President Joe Biden declared that an emergency exists in the states of New Jersey and New York and ordered federal assistance to supplement local response efforts due to conditions resulting from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, the White House said on Thursday.
Roadways were transformed into river-like torrents in minutes as the downpours struck on Wednesday night, trapping drivers in quickly rising floodwaters. Scores of vehicles were found abandoned on area roadways on Thursday.
Subway services in New York City remained “extremely limited,” transit officials said, and commuter rail services to the suburbs were largely suspended. About 370 flights were canceled at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty Airport.
The damage came three days after Ida, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to strike the US Gulf Coast, made landfall on Sunday in Louisiana, destroying entire communities. But the loss of life in the Northeast dwarfed the confirmed storm-related death toll of nine in Louisiana.
Climate change is here, say officials
The storm and its death toll served as grim reminders that as the climate changes, weather once considered freakish strikes with regularity, threatening the viability of all coastal economic centres.
Ida’s remnants brought 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20cm) of rain to a swath of the Northeast from Philadelphia to Connecticut and set an hourly rainfall record of 3.15 inches for Manhattan, breaking one set by Tropical Storm Henri less than two weeks ago, the National Weather Service said.
“Climate change is happening right now,” New York governor Kathy Hochul said via Twitter. “It is not a future threat. It is a current threat.”
The number of disasters, such as floods and heat waves, driven by climate change has increased fivefold over the past 50 years, according to a report