NEW YORK — Three states struggled Thursday to overcome
devastating and deadly rains brought on by the remnants of Hurricane Ida as
national and local leaders acknowledged that the region would need to adjust to
a reality in which extreme weather events were the norm.
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At least 24 people were killed by the storm in
New York,
New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which 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.
In an address,
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.
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
leveled 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.
New York City’s subway lines remained at least partly suspended
as of midday Thursday, as was commuter rail service across the region. 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.
Four people were found dead in an apartment complex in
Elizabeth, New Jersey, city officials said Thursday. Another death occurred in
Passaic, New Jersey, where the Passaic River breached its banks and fish
flopped in the streets.
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 Aug.
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.
As of late Thursday morning, the system was located near eastern
Long Island, New York, moving northeast at 28 mph and accelerating toward Cape
Cod, Massachusetts, with maximum sustained winds of 28 mph.
After heavy rain overnight, more rain was expected across parts
of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where flash flood warnings were
in effect, the weather service said.
The weather service warned of life-threatening flash flooding in
urban areas, including on highways and below underpasses, and in areas near
streams and small rivers. Several rivers in Connecticut were approaching 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.
“While many rivers and streams are swollen, a total of 15 river
forecast points are in flood stage” in Connecticut, Rhode Island and
Massachusetts, the weather service said Thursday. “River flooding will remain a
concern.”
As of 11 a.m. Thursday, more than 9 inches of rain had fallen in
New Bedford, Massachusetts, and nearly 7 inches had fallen in Middletown,
Connecticut. Portsmouth, Rhode Island, was drenched with more than 8 inches of
rain, while about 4 inches had fallen in Hudson, Maine, according to the
weather service’s Weather Prediction Service.
Photos circulating on social media showed some of the worst
flooding and storm damage. Television news cameras captured a road surface that
crumbled in Portsmouth, with one car dangling over the broken pavement. The
Police Department in Waltham, Massachusetts, shared an image of several school
buses submerged in floodwater.
Although the rainfall was beginning to move out of the area,
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 said. “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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