Vehicles drive through the streets, subway stations are flooded: a storm of historic proportions brought the heaviest rain in history to the metropolis of New York and caused severe flooding. The boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens were particularly affected.
Streets and apartments were sometimes up to a meter high in water late Wednesday evening, and subway traffic had to be stopped. According to the police, at least nine people were killed.
Fast home…
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“We are witnessing a historic weather event tonight with record rain across the city, brutal flooding and dangerous conditions on our roads,” Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted. People should take shelter in houses and not on the streets to allow the rescue workers to work. The mayor declared a state of emergency.
Videos are circulating on social media showing how the water masses are flooding streets.
Around 80 millimeters of rain fell in Central Park in Manhattan within an hour, according to the National Weather Service. The power went out in more than 5,000 households. Newark Airport has temporarily suspended its air traffic, and John F. Kennedy Airport has reported delays.
Another Twitter video documents a subway station flooding.
The spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Joe English, captured Queens Boulevard in the district of the same name in a video. It is so flooded that passengers in a regular bus have to climb onto their seats.
The authorities in New York and its environs had warned of severe storms, life-threatening floods and even tornadoes on Wednesday evening. The extreme weather also hit the US Open and the German tennis player Angelique Kerber. Her second round match against Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina has been postponed to this Thursday.
State of emergency also in the state of New York
The governor of the US state of New York, Kathy Hochul, also declared a state of emergency because of the storm “Ida”. The move should enable help for everyone affected by the storm, Hochul tweeted.
Storm damage is also being reported from other parts of the Northeast US. A tornado uprooted trees and knocked down power poles in Maryland’s capital Annapolis, about 50 kilometers from the US capital Washington. A 19-year-old also died in floods in Maryland, and another person is missing. A tornado also destroyed several homes in the state of New Jersey.
se / sti (dpa, ap, afp, rtr, twitter)
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