WASHINGTON: Officials in the U.S. states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania on Thursday said at least 40 people had died as a result of flash flooding caused by torrential rainfall driven by remnants of Hurricane Ida.
Officials in New York City said as many as 15 people had died while trapped in basement apartments by floodwaters or caught in their cars.
The storm system that came ashore Sunday in Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane dumped so much rain in the Northeast U.S. that on Wednesday the National Weather Service issued its first flash flood emergency for New York City and the neighboring city of Newark, New Jersey. At least 23 people died in New Jersey, and at least five perished in Pennsylvania.
Many streets were quickly turned into rivers, submerging cars and even commuter buses. Most of the city’s subway system was shut down by the flooding.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul spoke with reporters after touring the city and noted the record-setting eight centimeters of rain that fell in one hour in New York’s Central Park, breaking a record set just one week earlier.
“We did not know that between 8:50 and 9:50 p.m. last night, that the heavens would literally open up and bring Niagara Falls’ level of water to the streets of New York,” said Hochul, who became governor last week after former Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned.
This kind of cataclysmic event, she added, is no longer unforeseeable, and the city and state need to be prepared.
(VOA)
Comment