Ida remnants pound Northeast with rain, flooding, tornadoes – KIRO 7 News Seattle

NEW YORK – (AP) – The remnants of Hurricane Ida blew through the mid-Atlantic states on Wednesday with at least two tornadoes, fierce winds and soaked rain that collapsed the roof of a U.S. Post Office building, submerged cars and roads, and Garbage sent floating through the streets of New York.

Social media posts revealed homes being reduced to rubble in a southern New Jersey borough just outside Philadelphia, not far from where the National Weather Service confirmed a tornado on Wednesday night. The authorities had no immediate information about the injured.

Another video showed water flowing through Newark Liberty International Airport as the storm hit New York on Wednesday night.

The New York and New Jersey Port Authority, which operates the airport, tweeted at 10:30 p.m. that all flights had been suspended and all parking lots had been closed due to severe flooding. All train connections to the airport have also been discontinued.

The National Weather Service recorded 3.15 inches of rain in one hour in Central Park, New York, far exceeding 1.94 inches recorded in the park during Tropical Storm Henri on the night of the 21st.

New York’s FDR Drive, a major artery on the east side of Manhattan, was flooded late in the evening, and subway stations and tracks were so flooded that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority shut down all traffic. Videos posted on the Internet showed subway drivers standing on seats in cars filled with water.

Other videos showed vehicles submerged to their windows on major streets in and around the city and trash floating down a street in Queens.

At the US Open tennis tournament in Queens, television footage showed fans who had seen games under the retractable roof of Arthur Ashe Stadium, struggling with inches of water as they exited.

Few parts of the area were untouched, and residents huddled together and endured the fear caused by the tornado warnings that gradually moved north and east with the storm.

The roof of the Postal Service building in Kearny, New Jersey collapsed with people, Police Sgt. Chris Levchak said. Rescue workers were on site until late at night without giving any direct information about the number of people or the severity of the injuries.

Governor Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency in all 21 counties of New Jersey and urged people to avoid the flooded streets. Meteorologists warned the rivers are unlikely to ripple for a few more days, increasing the possibility of major flooding.

Soaked rains led to the evacuation of thousands of people after water reached dangerous levels at a dam near Johnstown, a Pennsylvania town nicknamed the Flood City.

Ida caused countless school and business closures in Pennsylvania. Approximately 150 roads maintained by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation were closed and many smaller roads were also impassable. Several thousand customers were still without electricity late on Wednesday evening.

Some areas near Johnstown, whose history includes multiple fatal floods, fell 5 inches or more of rain that afternoon, a flood that triggered an evacuation order for those downstream of Wilmore Dam. The nearby Hinckston Run Dam was also monitored but appeared stable in the late afternoon.

Both dams were considered to be high risk dams where if they fail someone is likely to be killed.

Evacuees were taken to a nearby high school with help from the Red Cross, the National Guard, the local transportation department and school transport service, he said.

The 1889 Johnstown Flood killed 2,200 people, a disaster stemming from poor maintenance of the South Fork Dam on the Little Conemaugh River. It sent a 36-foot wall of water into an inhabited area at a speed of 65 km / h.

Floods drove some from their homes in Maryland and Virginia. The storm killed a teenager, two people were not held accountable, and a tornado is believed to have landed along Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

The National Weather Service had predicted flooding from the remains of Hurricane Ida and said steep terrain and even city streets were particularly vulnerable to a group of storms that stretched from the Appalachian Mountains to Massachusetts.

Flash floods tore about 20 houses from their foundations and washed away several caravans in Virginia’s mountainous western corner, where about 50 people were rescued and hundreds were evacuated. News outlets reported that one person was missing in the small mountain community of Hurley.

The water had nearly reached the ceilings of the basement rooms when the crews arrived at an apartment complex in Rockville, Maryland on Wednesday. A 19-year-old was found dead, another person went missing and about 200 people were evicted from 60 homes near Rock Creek, Montgomery County Fire Department chief Scott Goldstein said Wednesday.

“I haven’t seen such circumstances in many years,” said Goldstein.

Tropical Storm Larry intensified and moved quickly west after forming off the coast of Africa on Wednesday. Forecasters predicted that, similar to Ida, it would intensify rapidly and turn into a major hurricane with peak winds of 193 km / h by Saturday. Kate remained a tropical depression and was supposed to ease off without threatening the country.

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This story was corrected to show that the rain from Tropical Storm Henri in Central Park occurred on August 21st, not August 22nd.

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