What you need to know
- The remnants of Hurricane Ida turned major highways into currents and caused states of emergency in New York and New Jersey.
- A travel ban has been issued in all five municipalities until 5am on Thursday. All non-emergency vehicles must leave New York streets and highways, the city’s emergency service said.
- The National Meteorological Service confirmed at least one tornado and social media posts showed dilapidated houses in Mullica Hill, New Jersey
The remnants of Hurricane Ida caused strong winds, rainfall and at least one tornado on Wednesday, as the storm attacked the tri-state area, turning major highways into streams and causing states of emergency in New York and New Jersey.
The National Weather Service confirmed at least one tornado and social media posts showed dilapidated houses in Mullica Hill, a county in southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia. Another video showed water running through Newark Liberty International Airport as the storm moved to New York on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, pouring rain for a month and killing at least six people.
Track live radar and see Ida’s latest times and potential impacts here.
The New York and New Jersey Port Authority, which operates the airport, tweeted at 10:30 p.m. that all flights were suspended and all parking lots were closed due to severe flooding. All train services in New York City were also suspended and the acting president of the MTA said it is unclear whether everything will be up and running for the morning commute.
A travel ban has been issued in all five municipalities until 5am on Thursday. All non-emergency vehicles must exit New York’s streets and highways, the city’s emergency service said.
Heavy rain has stopped mostly in the city, but New Yorkers are likely to take care of the damage for the next few days.
Tornadoes fell in the three-state zone as the remnants of Hurricane Ida erupted in the region Wednesday night. Brian Thompson reports.
“I think the morning will be a problem,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said before issuing the state of emergency. “We are enduring a historic weather event tonight with record rain across the city, brutal flooding and dangerous conditions on our roads.”
For the first time, the NWS issued a flash flood emergency for 9.1 million New Yorkers at risk and urged them to seek higher ground. The devastating impacts of the storm were higher than expected and many referred to the toll from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 after seeing the floods.
A giant hole can be seen next to a house on 183rd Street in Jamaica, Queens, where a mother and her son died after flood water rushed into the basement. According to a source in the Office of Emergency Management and Neighbors, officials had to send divers to rescue them.
The FDNY confirmed that firefighters rescued two other people after a partial collapse of the wall there and police said the deceased was a 22-year-old man and his mother a 45-year-old. Also in Queens, a 48-year-old woman was confirmed dead in a residence on Grand Central Parkway after police responded to a 911 call about flooding.
Police later confirmed that three more people died, including a 2-year-old boy, at a home in Flushing, Queens.
On Brooklyn’s Ridgewood Avenue, EMS staff found a 66-year-old man who did not answer after a call about flood conditions. The man was pronounced dead at the scene and his cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner, police said. Other early attendees responded to flood-related calls throughout New York City using specialized “high-axle” vehicles purchased after Sandy to conduct rescues in areas with especially high water.
The National Weather Service recorded 3.15 inches of rain in New York’s Central Park in one hour, far exceeding the 1.94 inches that fell in an hour during Tropical Storm Henri on the night of August 22, which at the time it was believed to be the most ever recorded in the park.
The roof collapsed in the Kearny, New Jersey Postal Service building, with people inside, the police sergeant. Said Chris Levchak. Rescue crews were on the scene until nightfall, without immediately notifying the number of people or the severity of the injuries.
Gov. Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency in all 21 counties in New Jersey, and urged people to stay off the flooded roads. With 4-5 feet of water on the ground, the mayor of Passaic, New Jersey, declared a state of emergency and confirmed to NBC New York that at least two people have died.
One person recorded a video of water running through the living room door of an apartment in New York City as Ida’s wreckage caused flooding throughout the area.
The floodwaters caused the New Jersey Highway to stop Wednesday afternoon. The water rose to the tires of the vehicles on the busy road, as well as on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and I-95 in Connecticut, according to videos posted on social media.
Check out the latest weather alerts for your neighborhood.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has also commissioned state agencies to prepare emergency response assets, with dangerous conditions expected to cover areas from New York City to Long Island to the New York City regions. Southern Tier, Mid-Hudson Valley and Capital District.
Central Park typically receives 4.31 inches of rain during the month of September and could see more than that when the system moves in the next 36 hours. If the park exceeds 3.8 inches of daily rain on Wednesday or Thursday, it would break daily records that have been held since 1927.
Records show that the largest one-day rainfall in New York City was 8.28 inches in 1882. Parts of Brooklyn saw more than Henry’s 36-hour siege last month, while that Central Park recorded its wettest hour in history.
This summer has already been the second wettest in Central Park, and many spots across the state are still saturated with relentless storms.
Meanwhile, Storm Team 4 is tracking Larry, who has strengthened into a hurricane in the early hours of Thursday morning and is moving rapidly westward after forming off the coast of Africa on Wednesday before. Meteorologists predicted it would intensify rapidly in a manner similar to Ida, becoming a major hurricane with maximum wind speeds of 120 mph by Saturday.
Track approaching storms using our interactive radar below.