logo
Two dead in New Jersey after heavy storm sends floodwaters gushing into New York city subway station

Two dead in New Jersey after heavy storm sends floodwaters gushing into New York city subway station

Two people have been killed after their vehicle was swept up in floodwaters during a storm that moved across the US north-east overnight, authorities have said.
The intense rainfall over New Jersey and New York caused severe flooding in the region and sent water gushing into a subway train platform, causing delays.
Authorities have issued several flash flood warnings across the New York City metropolitan area.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, urged citizens to "stay alert".
"We're not unique, but we're in one of these sort of high-humidity, high-temperature, high-storm-intensity patterns right now," he said.
The names of the two victims were not immediately released but local officials said the vehicle they were riding in was swept into a brook during the height of the storm.
"Emergency personnel responded quickly but tragically, both individuals were pronounced dead at the scene," according to a statement the city posted online.
The heavy rains also caused flash floods in south-central Pennsylvania on Monday night local time into early Tuesday, prompting road and public transport closures.
It was the second-highest 1-hour rainfall ever recorded in Central Park at more than 5 centimetres, surpassed only by the remnants of Hurricane Ida in 2021, according to local officials.
Janno Lieber, chair and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, told ABC 7 in New York 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 online.
"What happened last night is something that is, you know, a reality in our system," he said on live television.
"We've been working with the city of New York to try to get them to increase the capacity of the system at these key locations."
City officials said their venerable sewer system worked as well as it could, but it simply was not built to handle that much rain.
"Imagine putting a 2-litre bottle of water into a 1-litre bottle. Some of it's going to spill," Environmental Protection Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala said.
Mr Lieber said full service was restored to the subway, as well as commuter rails, after hundreds of people worked overnight to restore operations.
Flooding has proven to be a stubborn problem for New York's subway system, despite years and billions of dollars worth of efforts to waterproof it.
Reuters/AP
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Over 19,000 evacuated as storms dump nearly a year of rain in northern China
Over 19,000 evacuated as storms dump nearly a year of rain in northern China

ABC News

time6 hours ago

  • ABC News

Over 19,000 evacuated as storms dump nearly a year of rain in northern China

Storms in northern China have poured nearly a year's rainfall on Baoding, an industrial city on the doorstep of capital Beijing, forcing over 19,000 people out of their homes as streets began to go under water and roads were cut off. As much as 448.7 millimetres of rain fell in Yi, an area in western Baoding, in the 24 hours to early Friday morning, triggering flash floods, causing power outages in some villages and damaging bridges and roads, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The rainfall set records at a number of weather stations in Hebei province, which Baoding is part of. Official records show annual rainfall in Baoding averages above 500 millimetres. There were no immediate reports of casualties, any people missing or damage in state media. Some 19,453 people from 6,171 households were evacuated, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) said in a social media post. The forecaster did not mention where the residents were moved to, but shared a short clip showing two police officers in neon rain jackets boot-deep on a waterlogged street as rain poured down. The forecaster compared the amount of precipitation to the exceptional rainfall brought by a powerful typhoon in 2023, which inundated the capital Beijing with rains unseen since records began 140 years ago. Baoding's Zhuozhou, which suffered devastating floods in those rains two years ago, saw access to several bridges and roads cut off after the storms unleashed more than 190 millimetres of rain by Friday morning. Northern China has witnessed record-breaking rainfall in recent years, exposing densely populated cities, including Beijing, to flood risks. Some scientists link the higher rainfall in China's usually arid north to global warming. In response to flood disasters in Hebei and also in several places in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, the Chinese government allocated 23,000 items for disaster relief, including emergency kits and blankets, to support local authorities. Hebei province recorded 640.3 millimetres in annual rainfall last year, 26.6 per cent more than its decades-long average, according to CMA's 2024 climate bulletin on the province. The report said Hebei has been recording consecutive above-average annual precipitation since 2020. Last summer, Baoding, together with neighbouring cities Zhangjiakou, Langfang, Xiongan and Cangzhou, had 40 per cent more than the usual seasonal precipitation, with some localised areas within Baoding recording 80 per cent more rains, the report showed. The intensifying rainfall forms part of the broader pattern of extreme weather across China due to the East Asian monsoon, which has caused disruptions in the world's second-largest economy. Chinese authorities are watchful of extreme rainfall and severe flooding as they challenge China's aging flood defences, threaten to displace millions and wreak havoc on a US$2.8 trillion agricultural sector. Baoding maintained a red alert for heavy rains on Friday morning, while Hebei upgraded its emergency response preparedness. Beijing, which is about 160 kilometres from Baoding, was not spared the impact. Rains were forecast to intensify, potentially accumulating to more than 50 millimetres over a six-hour period from Friday afternoon till Saturday morning in a number of districts, CCTV said. The capital is expected to see the heaviest rainfall since its flooding season began, potentially triggering debris rushing down mountains, landslides and other secondary disasters, CCTV reported. Beijing later on Friday issued flash flood alerts for four of its 16 districts, warning of a rapid rise in stormwater especially in the capital's mountainous north and west through Saturday morning. Elsewhere in the country's north, heavy rains disrupted railway service in Inner Mongolia as authorities suspended several passenger trains passing through high-risk areas from Friday to Tuesday. Reuters

Tornado tears through Perth's western suburbs, damaging homes and uprooting trees
Tornado tears through Perth's western suburbs, damaging homes and uprooting trees

ABC News

time2 days ago

  • ABC News

Tornado tears through Perth's western suburbs, damaging homes and uprooting trees

Residents say a freak tornado that ripped through Perth's coastal suburbs sounded "like a jet engine" as it fell trees and tore up the roofs of homes. Multi-million-dollar properties were damaged and debris covered the roads in the affluent suburb of City Beach after the Wednesday-night storm the Bureau of Meteorology has now confirmed was a tornado. The storm, which came with little warning, was detected intensifying around 5:20pm. "[The storm] became significant as it immediately approached the coastline, so very limited scope for warning," meteorologist Jessica Lingard told ABC Radio Perth. "[There's] a lot of damage that we've seen overnight and it does look like it was a tornado that caused the damage in City Beach." Images and videos of a waterspout forming over the ocean were circulated in community social media pages. Ms Lingard said it likely continued as a tornado. "[It] maybe started off as a waterspout, then managed to make that sea-land boundary crossing and hold its steam together to produce that damage," Ms Lingard said. City Beach resident Anita was out at the time the tornado ripped through the area but said when she returned home later that night, she was confronted by destruction. "I can only describe it as devastation," she told ABC Radio Perth. "West Coast Highway was covered in huge branches, which I tried to move off the road for the traffic, and the pathway was just covered. "We were just in the direct firing line, the trees are just struck down. "Then it moved beyond our place south-east and took off our friend's roof." Another resident, Carlene, said she did not see the storm coming but the sound of the wind outside was "extraordinary." "All of a sudden we heard this amazing, like, a roar, like a jet engine … the wind came through the house," she told ABC Radio Perth. "Creating havoc outside — the next door neighbour's trees are split in half." Damage was also reported in Perth's eastern suburb of Rivervale, but the bureau ruled out the possibility of another tornado. "[It was] probably not a tornado through the Rivervale area, through that looks like to be more localised, perhaps something like a microburst there," Ms Lingard said.

Kingston South East and Robe hit by flooding and storm damage in wave of bad weather
Kingston South East and Robe hit by flooding and storm damage in wave of bad weather

ABC News

time3 days ago

  • ABC News

Kingston South East and Robe hit by flooding and storm damage in wave of bad weather

A storm has caused flooding and damaged infrastructure for the third time in two months in Kingston South East and Robe, in South Australia's south-east. The towns were hit with a high tide, winds of up to 100 kilometres per hour, swell of up to 6 metres high and heavy rain yesterday. The towns suffered through similar weather at the end of May and the end of June. Yesterday's weather also caused flooding for the third time this year in the Rosetown area of Kingston. Despite houses in the area being built high off the street the State Emergency Service had to respond to water coming into two homes yesterday. "Certainly the rough weather kept the SES crews busy across the state," spokesperson Chris Marks said. "In the South East we had 32 requests for assistance, so our volunteers were certainly working hard." More bad weather is expected over the weekend. Rosetown resident Peter Frankling said the water came up quickly and surrounded his home. "I was talking to a friend earlier in the day and I said, 'I reckon it might flood again' — and within five minutes it had come up over the road … it's come in quite hard and quite fast," he said. Yesterday Kingston District Council voted to order a drainage study to look into how flooding could be prevented in Rosetown. Council chief executive Ian Hart said it appeared that the flooding was becoming more common and that water lying around for extended periods could have negative health effects. "You talk to people who have been here many more years than I have and they're saying they haven't seen anything like it before — what's happened in the last few weeks — for many, many years," he said. "This might be the new norm — we don't know." Flinders University professor Patrick Hesp has been studying erosion along the Limestone Coast for several years. He said the storms and damage appeared to be occurring "pretty much random" rather than being part of a growing pattern. "We're just having one of those years where we're having a storm every month and I believe another one is coming this weekend," Professor Hesp said. Bruce Parker filmed huge waves crashing over the Cape Jaffa jetty on Tuesday. "You will see in that video there is a little bit of damage to the jetty — just off the shore line, boards have lifted a bit," he said. In Robe power poles and beaches were damaged. Mayor Lisa Ruffell said the council had put rubble down on Fox Beach after sand added after last month's storms washed away. "It was pretty wild — the winds were so strong," she said. "I don't think I've ever seen the sea so rough and coming right at us, with the waves coming up across our coastline." A seal was seen waddling out of the marina and wandering around town. "He was so cute, but I could feel his pain, because it was just so bad, the weather," Cr Ruffell said. "The marina, where it was, the water was right over the car park there and so I thought, 'He doesn't probably want to go in it.' "I wouldn't blame him." More windy and rainy weather is expected on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Lincoln Trainor said a front would come through the South East on Friday, along with a broad low-pressure system. "It is going to a bit more wild, windy and wet from Friday onwards," he said.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store