A deluge of rainfall assaulted the New York City metro area Wednesday night into Thursday, leading to numerous fatalities, and is being described by AccuWeather forecasters as “the most significant flash-flooding disaster” in the city’s history.
By Friday morning, at least 48 fatalities had been confirmed along the East Coast as a result of the storm, according to The Associated Press. Officials said people in five states died in the extreme weather with 25 people in New Jersey, the highest death toll by state, killed. At least 10 were killed in New York and people died in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Connecticut. Ida’s death toll from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast had eclipsed 60 by Friday.
Felix Delapuente, a neighbor of the home in the Queens borough of New York where three people died including a 2-year old child, shows the flood damage in his basement, Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021, in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Three of the New York fatalities occurred in a single household in the New York City borough of Queens. The three family members, including a 2-year-old boy, drowned in the neighborhood of Flushing. Two others were killed in the neighborhood of Jamaica when flooding collapsed the wall of their home.
“I have no words,” New York City resident Deborah Reyes told the AP. “How can something like this happen? And the worst is that there’s a family downstairs with a baby, and they couldn’t get out.”
Another four deaths occurred at an apartment complex in Elizabeth, New Jersey, The AP reported. Elizabeth’s mayor had previously reported five fatalities from the complex.
On Thursday evening, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced that he had requested a Major Disaster Declaration from President Joe Biden in the state. Murphy said the approval of this request from the president would allow for additional support to help residents and business owners recover from the flooding.
“The torrential rain from Tropical Rainstorm Ida on Wednesday night resulted in the most significant flash-flooding disaster in New York City history,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said. AccuWeather forecasters had been shouting from the rooftops this week about the threat the storm posed as it charged toward the Northeast.
From the mid-Atlantic to New England, Ida lived up to its billing as a dangerous tropical rainstorm. AccuWeather Founder and CEO Dr. Joel N. Myers said he increased his preliminary estimate of total damage and economic loss from Ida due the extreme impacts across the Northeast. He raised the estimate to $95 billion from a previous estimate of $70 billion to $80 billion.
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