At least 43 dead after Ida causes flooding in 3 US states

New York City’s subway lines remained at least partly suspended as of midday Thursday

In the aftermath of a ferocious storm that killed more than three dozen people in four states, national and local leaders acknowledged Thursday that extreme weather events posed an urgent and ongoing threat.

The storm killed at least 43 people in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut and left more than 150,000 homes without power. States of emergency remained in effect across the region by midday Thursday, as officials sought to get a handle on the damage.

Speaking from the White House, President Joe Biden said the damage indicated that “extreme storms and the climate crisis are here,” constituting what he called “one of the great challenges of our time.”

At a news conference in Queens on Thursday morning, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said that she had received a call from Biden, who she said “offered any assistance” as the state assessed the damage from Ida, a storm that she said represented a new normal.

“We need to foresee these in advance and be prepared,” she said.

Also read: 'Heartbroken' New Yorkers count cost of devastating rainfall

The deluge of rain Wednesday — more than half a foot fell in just a few hours — turned streets and subway platforms into rivers. Emergency responders in boats rescued people from the rooftops of cars. Hundreds of people were evacuated from trains and subways. A tornado in southern New Jersey levelled a stretch of houses. Some rivers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania were still rising.

The rain broke records set just 11 days before by Tropical Storm Henri, underscoring warnings from climate scientists of a new normal on a warmed planet. Hotter air holds more water and allows storms to gather strength more quickly and grow ever larger.

Many of New York City’s subway lines remained suspended into the evening Thursday. Airports were open, but hundreds of flights had been canceled.

In New York City, the dead ranged in age from a 2-year-old boy to an 86-year-old woman, police said. Some drowned in basement apartments in Queens, where a system of makeshift and mostly illegally converted living spaces has sprung up.

On Thursday afternoon, Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey announced that at least 23 people in the state had died. They included four people found dead in an apartment complex in Elizabeth and two people were killed in Hillsborough, New Jersey after they became trapped in their vehicles, a spokesperson for the town said. Another death occurred in Passaic, New Jersey, where the Passaic River breached its banks and fish flopped in the streets.

Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut announced that the state would lower flags to half-staff to honour Brian Mohl, a state police sergeant whose car was swept away by the floodwaters.

The 3.15 inches of rain that fell in Central Park in one hour Wednesday eclipsed the record-breaking one-hour rainfall of 1.94 inches on August 21. The National Weather Service, struggling to depict the level of danger, declared a flash flood emergency in New York City for the first time.

In Bergen County, New Jersey’s most populous county, County Executive James Tedesco, a former firefighter, said Thursday, “We have not complete devastation but close to it. This is as bad as I’ve ever seen it.”

The remnants of Ida swept across parts of southern New England on Thursday, flooding streets and homes but not causing the catastrophic damage that just hours earlier had paralyzed the New York City area.

The storm dumped more than 9 inches of rain on New Bedford, Massachusetts, and nearly 7 inches on Middletown, Connecticut while Portsmouth, Rhode Island, was drenched with more than 8 inches of rain and about 4 inches fell on Hudson, Maine, according to the weather service.

In Dennis, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, a tornado touched down at about 1:45 a.m. with winds of about 75 mph, the weather service said.

The tornado caused minor damage to one house and some tree damage, but no one was injured, according to Lt. Peter Benson of the Dennis Police Department.

“From talking to the people in the home, they realized what was going on and they sheltered in the basement,” he said.

In North Kingstown, Rhode Island, firefighters evacuated 15 people from an apartment complex where stormwater had come out of the electrical outlets, the fire chief, Scott Kettelle, said. No one was injured, he said, but two first-floor apartments had water damage.

Concerns about stormwater runoff and overflowing sewers prompted the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management to close shellfish harvesting in Narragansett Bay and in coastal salt ponds. Sewer water and stormwater runoff can contaminate oysters and other shellfish, which are prized delicacies in the state.

In Portsmouth, Rhode Island, the flooding caused a road to crack apart and buckle, and water service in the area was “extremely limited,” the police there said.

In Waltham, Massachusetts, police shared an image of several school buses submerged in floodwater while the police in Bristol, Rhode Island, shared a photo of submerged cars.

In Northbridge, Massachusetts, roughly 43 miles southwest of Boston, police reported that the Blackstone River had flooded backyards and had reached roads.

The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency said it had been in contact with communities across the state to determine the extent of the damage.

“At this time, the observed damage is mostly street flooding and other minor flooding as well as trees/power lines down resulting in scattered power outages,” the agency said in a statement.

At 11 am, Amtrak announced that all service between Washington and Boston had been cancelled for the day.

The weather service had warned of life-threatening flash flooding in urban areas, including on highways and below underpasses, and in areas near streams and small rivers.

Neil Mello, chief of staff to the mayor of New Bedford, said that despite the report that 9 inches of rain had fallen there, most of the city had received about 5 inches.

The Fire Department was busy overnight pumping out flooded basements, he said, and some low-lying intersections had flooded. But “compared to winter storms and other storm events, the impact on the city traffic-wise and power-wise was pretty modest,” Mello said.

Several rivers in Connecticut had approached or had crested above moderate flood stage, the weather service said, including the Mount Hope River in Warrenville, the Quinnipiac River in Southington, and the North Branch Park River in Hartford.

Although the rainfall had moved out of the area by the middle of Thursday, there were still many flooded roads throughout southern New England.

“It will take time for the water to recede in these areas,’’ the weather service in Boston warned Thursday morning. “Do not attempt to cross any flooded roads this morning. Turn around don’t drown!”

Rhode Island has already seen two tropical storms make landfall this hurricane season: Henri last month, and Elsa in July.

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