Torrential rains fell this Thursday, October 30, in New York City. Two people died due to flooding caused by a storm, the American press reports.
Around 4:30 p.m. Local time, firefighters received a call from a 39-year-old man who said he was trapped in the flooded basement of a home in Brooklyn. He was pronounced dead at the hospital where he was rushed, says CBS News.
In the afternoon, the New York police also intervened in a building in the Washington Heights neighborhood, in northern Manhattan. A 43-year-old man was found dead in a flooded boiler room located in a basement.
Record rainfall
These deaths occurred while a flash flood warning had been issued for several neighborhoods in New York: Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and parts of Manhattan, NBC News highlights. According to the National Weather Service (NWS), some parts of the city saw record rainfall. In Central Park, 4.7 cm of rain was recorded, surpassing the 1917 record of 4.1 cm. At La Guardia, one of the city’s three airports, 5.3 cm was measured, almost double the previous record from 1955.
Planes at New York airports were grounded for a time, causing delays. The heavy rains were accompanied by wind gusts that reached 85 km/h. Trees have fallen.
Flooding has left roads sometimes impassable. Transportation networks have been disrupted. For example, some subway lines were forced to avoid stations that had water on the tracks.
“The record-breaking storm continues a recent trend of short but extremely intense downpours that have become increasingly frequent in recent years,” a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection warned.
Source: BFM TV
