Northeast hit with rain, floods and tornadoes
Hurricane Ida remnants to blame; more floods expected
NEW YORK — The remnants of Hurricane Ida blew through the mid-Atlantic states Wednesday with at least two tornadoes, heavy winds and drenching rains that collapsed the roof of a U.S. Postal Service building, left cars and roads underwater, and sent garbage floating through the streets of New York.
Social media posts showed homes reduced to rubble in a southern New Jersey county just outside Philadelphia, not far from where the National Weather Service confirmed a tornado Wednesday evening. Authorities had no immediate information on injuries.
Other video showed water rushing through Newark Liberty International Airport as the storm moved into New York Wednesday night.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, tweeted at 10:30 p.m. that all flights were suspended and all parking lots were closed due to severe flooding. All train service to the airport also was suspended.
The National Weather Service recorded 3.15 inches of rain in New York’s Central Park in one hour, far surpassing the 1.94 inches that fell in one hour during Tropical Storm Henri on Aug. 21, which was believed at the time to be the most ever recorded in the park.
New York’s FDR Drive, a major artery on the east side of Manhattan, was underwater by late evening, and subway stations and tracks became so flooded that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority suspended all service. Videos posted online showed subway riders standing on seats in cars filled with water.
Other videos showed vehicles submerged up to their windows on major roadways in and around the city, and garbage floating down a street in Queens.
At the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Queens, television footage showed fans slogging through several inches of water as they left.
Few parts of the region were untouched, and residents huddled inside and endured the anxiety brought on by tornado warnings that moved north and east with the storm.
At the Postal Service building in Kearny, New Jersey, where the roof collapsed with people inside, rescue crews were on scene into the night, with no immediate word on the number of people or severity of injuries.
Gov. Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency in all of New Jersey’s 21 counties, urging people to stay off the flooded roads. Meteorologists warned that rivers likely won’t crest for a few days, raising the possibility of more widespread flooding.