Ida death toll rises to 45 across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Connecticut

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Flash flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida killed at least 45 people in the Northeast, including 23 in New Jersey alone and 12 in New York City as cleanup is underway from the ‘historic’ weather event that officials blamed on climate change.

The New York Police Department said that out of 12 people who died in the city, one of them perished in a car and 11 in flooded basement apartments that often serve as relatively affordable homes in one of the nation´s most expensive housing markets. The victims ranged from the ages of 2 to 86.

Five people died in Pennsylvania; one in Maryland; and one in Connecticut. 

‘Among the people MOST at risk during flash floods here are those living in off-the-books basement dwellings that don’t meet the safety codes necessary to save lives,’ lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

‘These are working class, immigrant, and low-income people & families,’ she added. 

Three also died in the New York suburb of Westchester while another three died in Montgomery County outside Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, a local official confirmed.  

A Connecticut state police sergeant perished after his cruiser was swept away. 

Flooding closed major roads across New Jersey and New York boroughs including Manhattan, The Bronx and Queens, submerging cars and forcing the fire department to rescue hundreds of people.

At least 23 people died in New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy told reporters.

‘The majority of these deaths were individuals who got caught in their vehicles,’ he said.

Murphy on Thursday requested that President Joe Biden issue a major disaster declaration due to the impact from  the remnants of Ida. Biden accepted the governor’s request.

In New York City, Sophy Liu roused her son from bed and put him in a life jacket and inflatable swimming ring as their first-floor apartment flooded in Queens.

Unable to open the door against the force of the water, she called friends for help. The water was nearly 5 feet high when they came to her rescue, she said.

‘I was obviously scared, but I had to be strong for my son. I had to calm him down,’ she recalled Thursday as medical examiners removed three bodies from a home down the street. 

Record rainfall, which prompted an unprecedented flash flood emergency warning for New York City, turned streets into rivers and shut down subway services as water cascaded down platforms onto tracks.

‘I’m 50 years old and I’ve never seen that much rain ever,’ said Metodija Mihajlov whose basement of his Manhattan restaurant was flooded with three inches of water.

‘It was like living in the jungle, like tropical rain. Unbelievable. Everything is so strange this year,’ he told AFP.

In another part of Queens, water rapidly filled Deborah Torres’ first-floor apartment to her knees as her landlord frantically urged her neighbors below – who included a baby – to get out, she said.  

But the water rushed in so strongly that she surmised they weren’t able to open the door. The three residents died.

‘I have no words,’ she said. ‘How can something like this happen?’

Ida’s remnants maintained a soggy core, then merged with a more traditional storm front and dropped an onslaught of rain on the Interstate 95 corridor, meteorologists said. 

Similar weather has followed hurricanes before, but experts said it was slightly exacerbated by climate change – warmer air holds more rain – and urban settings, where expansive pavement prevents water from seeping into the ground.

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 Governor 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 9:50pm 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 Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned.

De Blasio, also a Democrat, said he’d gotten a forecast Wednesday of 3 to 6 inches of rain over the course of the day. 

‘We’re enduring an historic weather event tonight with record-breaking rain across the city, brutal flooding and dangerous conditions on our roads,’ de Blasio said late on Wednesday.

State emergencies were declared in New York and New Jersey while the National Weather Service issued its first-ever emergency flash flood warning for New York City, urging residents to move to higher ground.

‘You do not know how deep the water is and it is too dangerous,’ the New York branch of the National Weather Service (NWS) said in a tweet.

The city’s Central Park ended up getting 3.15 inches just in one hour, surpassing the previous recorded high of 1.94 inches in one hour during Tropical Storm Henri on August 21.

Wednesday’s storm ultimately dumped over 9 inches of rain in parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and nearly as much on New York City’s Staten Island.

In Washington, President Joe Biden assured Northeast residents that federal first responders were on the ground to help clean up.

As Ida’s remnants hit New York, some highways flooded, garbage bobbed in streaming streets and water cascaded into the city’s subway tunnels, trapping at least 17 trains and halting service until early morning. 

Videos online showed riders standing on seats in swamped cars. All riders were evacuated safely, officials said.

At one Queens development, water filled the sunken patio of a basement apartment, then broke through a glass door, trapping a 48-year-old woman in 6 feet of water. Neighbors unsuccessfully tried for an hour to save her.

‘She was screaming, “Help me, help me, help me!” We all came to her aid, trying to get her out. But it was so strong – the thrust of the water was so strong,’ said the building’s assistant superintendent, Jayson Jordan.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled at LaGuardia and JFK airports, as well as at Newark, where video showed a terminal inundated by rainwater. 

In Elizabeth, New Jersey, near Newark Airport, four people died and 600 were left homeless from rain and river flooding in an apartment complex, Mayor J. Christian Bollwage said. 

Neighbors described hearing screaming from the complex at about 11pm as water flowed down the street, pushing dumpsters and cars around.

‘Sandy had nothing on this,’ resident Jennifer Vilchez said, referring to 2012’s Superstorm Sandy.

Greg Turner, who lives in another part of the city, said his 87-year-old mother started calling 911 from the complex at 8pm when the water started rising in her apartment. 

High water kept him and his brother from getting to her.

As midnight approached, the water reached her neck, he said. Rescuers finally cut through the floor of the apartment above and pulled her to safety.

‘She lost everything,’ Turner said as he headed to a bank for money to buy his mother clothes and shoes.

In New Jersey’s Milford Borough, authorities said they found a man´s body in a car buried up to its hood in dirt and rocks.

The ferocious storm also spawned tornadoes – at least seven, according to the National Weather Service. 

One split trees on Cape Cod, another tore off part of a high school roof in suburban Philadelphia and yet another ripped apart homes and toppled silos in Mullica Hill, New Jersey, south of Philadelphia.

‘It just came through and ripped,’ said resident Jeanine Zubrzycki, 33, who hid in her basement with her three children as the house shook and lights flickered. 

When the danger passed, they went upstairs and saw a neighbor’s house had been destroyed.

‘And then you could just hear people crying,’ said Zubrzycki, 33, whose own home was damaged but liveable.

Record flooding along the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania inundated homes, highways and commercial buildings, even as meteorologists warned that rivers likely won´t crest for a few more days. 

The riverside community of Manayunk remained largely under water.

The Schuyilkill reached levels not seen in over 100 years in Philadelphia, where firefighters were still getting calls about minor building collapses and people stuck in flooded cars Thursday morning, Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel said. 

The managers of a 941-unit apartment complex near the river ordered residents to evacuate, citing ‘deteriorating’ conditions after water rushed into the parking garage and pool areas.

In suburban Bucks County, several firefighters had to be rescued after rushing floodwaters pinned a rescue boat against a bridge pier, state emergency management director Randy Padfield said.

Others were unable to escape the floods, including Donald Bauer, who was driving home to Perkiomenville after attending their daughter’s volleyball game at DeSales University, near Allentown. 

The game had been moved up by two hours because of the weather.

State police Trooper Nathan Branosky said Bauer, 65, drowned in the car after helping his wife get out.

His wife is hospitalized, DeSales spokesperson Michael Corr said.

A flash flood warning continued into Thursday in New England, where authorities used boats to rescue 18 people from a neighborhood in Plainville, Connecticut, and 15 people – one in a wheelchair – from a complex in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. 

A road in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, crumbled.

In Frederick County, Maryland, first responders used a boat to rescue 10 children and a driver from a school bus caught in rising waters.

On Sunday, Ida struck Louisiana as the fifth-strongest storm to ever hit the US mainland, leaving 1 million people without power, maybe for weeks.

‘We’re all in this together. The nation is ready to help,’ Biden said ahead of a trip Friday to the southern state of Louisiana, where Ida earlier destroyed buildings and left more than a million homes without power.

The US Open was also halted as howling wind and rain blew under the corners of the Louis Armstrong Stadium roof.

New Yorkers woke to clear blue skies Thursday as the city edged back to life but signs of the previous night’s carnage weren’t far away: residents moved fallen tree branches from roads as subway services slowly resumed.

Around 98,000 homes in Pennsylvania, 60,000 in New Jersey and 40,000 in New York were without power, according to the website poweroutage.us.

It is rare for such storms to strike America’s northeastern seaboard and comes as the surface layer of oceans warms due to climate change.

The warming is causing cyclones to become more powerful and carry more water, posing an increasing threat to the world’s coastal communities, scientists say.

‘Global warming is upon us and it’s going to get worse and worse and worse unless we do something about it,’ said Democratic senator Chuck Schumer.

In Annapolis, 30 miles from Washington, a tornado ripped up trees and toppled electricity poles.

The NWS warned the threat of tornadoes would linger, with tornado watches in effect for parts of southern Connecticut, northern New Jersey, and southern New York as Ida tracked north through New England Thursday.