Maryland boy dies after being trapped in storm drain as rains drench east coast

The Guardian

a day ago

A 13-year-old boy has died after he was trapped in a storm drain in Maryland during heavy rainfall and flooding on the east coast, officials said.
Kids were playing in the rain on Thursday in a common area between apartment buildings in Mount Airy, a town of about 10,000 people about 30 miles (48km) west of Baltimore, but flood waters rushed in and the boy was swept into the pipe, according to Mount Airy volunteer fire company spokesperson Doug Alexander.
People tried to rescue the boy, but the water pressure was too strong and kept pushing him further into the pipe, he said. After the rain slowed, they were able to free him, but it was too late, Alexander said.
More storms might bring flash and urban flooding to the northern mid-Atlantic and southern New England region through Friday night, the National Weather Service (NWS) warned.
Parts of the Baltimore area received 2.5-4in (6-10cm) of rain on Thursday, according to the NWS, but isolated areas received more, including 5in (nearly 13cm) in Mount Airy and 6in (15cm) in Joppatowne north-east of Baltimore, where people were rescued from flooded cars.
A few areas in New York and New Jersey saw 3in (nearly 8cm) or more of rain and one part of central Long Island reported more than 4in (10cm), according to the NWS.
By Friday morning, subways and commuter rail routes in the New York area were running on normal schedules after some sections were inundated by flood waters. The city's department of transportation also reported that roads and highways that had been shut down due to high water on Thursday were reopened.
A few dozen flights were delayed or canceled at major airports in the New York, Boston and Washington regions on Friday morning, but most were running on time, according to the FlightAware tracking service.
Power remained out to thousands of homes and businesses along the eastern seaboard on Friday morning, including nearly 5,000 in New York, 3,800 in Virginia, 2,500 in Maryland and 2,500 in Pennsylvania, according to PowerOutage.us.
Amtrak trains between Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware, were stopped on Thursday evening because of high water over the tracks, but Amtrak announced a few hours later that service had been restored and water was receding from the railway.
New York City's mayor, Eric Adams, and other local officials pleaded with people on Thursday to stay off the roads and urged residents in basement apartments to move to higher locations as rain was expected to fall through Friday afternoon.
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In New York, flash flooding briefly closed sections of major roadways and inundated train stations across the metropolitan region as the evening rush hour approached.
Commuters captured video of water pouring over a train on a platform in Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal and water pooling on the floor of a city bus as it pushed through a flooded Brooklyn street.
Riders of one Long Island-bound commuter train were evacuated by firefighters as flood waters rose. Other commuter rail lines on Long Island and New Jersey were suspended or severely delayed.
Traffic cameras and social media posts on a highway in the New York City borough of Queens showed motorists at one point standing on the roofs of stranded vehicles and a tractor-trailer nearly fully submerged in water. Police said they pulled cars carrying two people from the flooded stretch before the waters receded and traffic slowly resumed.
The NWS warned that flooding was possible in small creeks and streams and along highways, streets, underpasses and places with poor drainage. Some areas could also see high wind gusts and hail.