Torrential rain swept across
New York City and New Jersey overnight, killing two people after drowning entire neighborhoods with floodwater, swamping NYC’s subway system and knocking out power for thousands across the tristate area.
The deaths occurred in the suburb of Plainfield on Monday, after
intense flooding
swept a vehicle into the small waterway of Cedar Brook at the peak of the storm around 8 p.m. Both people inside were pronounced dead on the scene, said Gov. Phil Murphy, who declared
a state of emergency
amid the deadly weather.
Their deaths marked the
third and fourth
caused by severe storms in the city this month.
“All of Plainfield
grieves this latest loss
,” Mayor Adrian Mapp told NJ.com. “To lose four residents in a short span of time is unimaginable. We mourn with the families and remain committed to doing all we can to strengthen our emergency response systems and protect our residents from future harm.”
Nearby in North Plainfield,
a home caught fire and exploded
shortly after the family inside had fled the rising floodwaters, authorities said. No injuries were reported.
“
We’re not unique
, but we’re in one of these sort of high humidity, high temperature, high storm intensity patterns right now,” Murphy told reporters. “Everybody needs to stay alert.”
A burst of tropical moisture moving up the East Coast — the result of a tropical storm developing near Florida — fueled a series of slow-moving thunderstorms that wreaked havoc on much of the region. They dumped a whopping six inches of rain on the Garden State in just a matter of hours, prompting dozens of water rescues.
Nearly 2,900 homes and businesses
remained without power on Tuesday in wake of the severe weather.
“
Six inches
of rain in under two and a half hours, in two waves — one wave, knocked a lot of these communities a little bit off kilter; the second one just came in for the kill,” Murphy told reporters Tuesday. “So we’re assessing around all these communities and counties.”
In New York
, approximately 2.64 inches of rain fell in Central Park on Monday, shattering the previous record for the same day, which was 1.47 inches
A 43-year-old New Yorker was injured by a falling tree branch, near West 149th Street and Bradhurst Avenue, as rain battered Harlem on Monday night. He was rushed to the hospital with two broken legs, but he’s expected to recover.
The severe weather also forced the closure
of several subway lines
. Video shared on social media shows water cascading down the stairs from a station entrance in Manhattan, and then
flowing past the turnstile.
Another image shared online sees passengers apparently standing on their subway seats to avoid the floodwaters seeping inside their train cars.
Janno Lieber, chair and CEO of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, told ABC 7 the
city’s sewer system got overwhelmed
by the rain and backed up into the subway tunnels and to the stations. In several cases, he said, the backup “popped a manhole,” creating the dramatic “geyser” seen in some videos.
Some roads remained closed in sections of New Jersey and dozens of flights were delayed or canceled at area airports Tuesday,
including 159 total cancelations at Newark Liberty Airport,
according to FlightAware data.
And while much of the warnings for the tristate area have since expired, forecasters have warned that flooding was still possible from Washington, D.C., to the Carolinas.
With News Wire Services
