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Fox News
14 minutes ago
- Fox News
NJ flash flooding kills at least 2 after surging waters sweep up vehicle
At least two people were killed in New Jersey after flash flooding swept away their vehicle during a storm that pounded the Northeast with heavy rains, authorities said Tuesday. The two deaths happened in the northern New Jersey city of Plainfield, when the rushing waters of a brook carried away their vehicle during the height of the storm, city officials said. Their names were not immediately released to the public. In one flooded North Plainfield neighborhood, a house caught on fire and collapsed, possibly due to an explosion, not long after the family inside had evacuated, authorities said. No injuries were reported. The latest flash flooding deaths follow two other deaths that happened in Plainfield during another severe storm on July 3. "All of Plainfield grieves this latest loss," said Mayor Adrian O. Mapp. "To lose four residents in such a short span of time is unimaginable. We mourn with the families, and we remain committed to doing all we can to strengthen our emergency response systems and protect our residents from future harm." New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy declared a State of Emergency on Monday night due to flash flooding, urging residents to stay off the roads. "We're not unique, but we're in one of these sort of high humidity, high temperature, high storm intensity patterns right now," Murphy told reporters after touring storm damage in Berkeley Heights. "Everybody needs to stay alert." Relentless rain inundated parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania with over six inches of rain in a short period of time Monday night into Tuesday morning, according to Fox Weather. The resulting floods stranded numerous vehicles and made roads impassable. Emergency water rescues took place to help those trapped in the floodwater. Dozens of flights were delayed or canceled at area airports Tuesday, including 159 total cancelations at Newark Liberty International Airport, according to FlightAware data. Most flash flood watches and warnings had expired in parts of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania as the rain moved on.
CBS News
an hour ago
- CBS News
New York cleaning up after flash floods make mess of roads, subways and more
New York is cleaning up and trying to dry out after Monday night's torrential rains caused flash flooding and damage. New York City Mayor Eric Adams is giving remarks on cleanup efforts and storm damage in the Big Apple. Some spots of the Saw Mill River Parkway are slowly reopening, but side streets in Yonkers were still drenched, with cars surrounded by water. Crews are working to pump out the water with an eye toward reopening the roadways in time for the evening rush hour. Rush hour Tuesday morning was a mess for drivers along the Saw Mill River Parkway, which was inundated with more than a foot of water in some spots, turning the parkway into a river. "Everything is flooded and I've never seen it this flooded in my life and I grew up here," Yonkers resident Tiffany Perez said. "Actually it's kind of concerning." At the Odell Avenue overpass, drivers could hardly make out the lane markers on the road due to flooding. The Bronx River Parkway in Elmsford was also hit hard. Crews were trying to clean up the mess. "We've had our crews out there since 5 o'clock in the morning trying to clean out storm drains. The challenge right now is because of the heavy rains and how quickly it came down, it was significant debris that has gotten put into different places, so we're really trying to work as hard as we can," Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said. Floodwater drenched the industrial section of Elmsford. It's an issue businesses there like Brookfield Resource Management deal with regularly. "It came faster than most, but all in all it's about a six out of ten," Ed Malone of Brookfield Resource Management said. "We went from 'Eh, it looks OK' to 'Oh, we're in trouble.' It happened quick." Malone said the water came up to about 18 inches in his building. They have shelves in place to get supplies off the floor, and diamond-plate aluminum sheets on lobby walls to make cleanup easier. "We're second generation, so, used to happen when our dads were here. We're always on the lookout and if there's even a slight chance we start going to high ground," Malone said. In Rockland County, flooding snarled Route 59 near the Palisades Mall. A tree smashed into a home in Branchville. While work continues to recover roads in the area, residents told CBS News New York they were having flashbacks to Superstorm Sandy and what it left behind. "I think Sandy and a couple of hurricanes where the Saw Mill River Parkway was covered in water so it's about the same," one man said. "Going north it's like a lake. Up further it's still deep."
Fast Company
an hour ago
- Fast Company
How this Florida county is using new 911 technology to save lives
When an emergency happens in Collier County, Florida, the 911 calls go to one of the most high-tech communications centers in the U.S., where callers can send text and video from the scene to dispatchers. Moving to what's known as an NG911 — or Next Generation 911 — system is a journey Sheriff Kevin Rambosk and Bob Finney, the county's director of communication, have been on for much of the past decade. It's a long way from Feb. 16, 1968, when Alabama's then-House Speaker Rankin Fite made the nation's very first 911 call in Haleyville, Alabama, on a bright red, rotary-style landline telephone. That ceremonial call came just 35 days after AT&T announced plans to use 911 as a nationwide emergency number. Today, most calls to 911 originate with cellphones, with dispatchers in upgraded centers using geo tracking to get accurate geographic locations from callers. But the response time in an emergency depends on the type of technology being used at any of the 6,000 emergency communications centers in the U.S. that receive 911 calls. There is no uniform emergency system in the U.S., so individual cities, counties, states or geographic regions are responsible for operating their own 911 call centers. While some states have fully updated to NG911 systems, others are still using legacy 911 systems that rely on antiquated equipment. 'We're just reminded in these last two weeks, with the flooding in Texas, just how important the work of 911 is,' said Michael Martin, CEO of RapidSOS, which provides infrastructure that passes critical data to emergency centers across the United States. The future is now for 911 The Collier County Sheriff's Office covers 911 calls from an area of about 2,030 square miles (5,258 square kilometers) that stretches from sandy beaches at the southernmost tip of the Gulf Coast on Florida's peninsula inland to the Everglades. It's a region that has been ravaged by hurricanes this century, including Hurricane Irma in 2017 and Hurricanes Ian and Milton most recently. That's why Sheriff Rambosk wanted a high-tech emergency operations center. 'We just believe that when we can reduce the response time using technology, it will improve safety and survivability of those calling in,' said Rambosk, who has been sheriff since 2009. 'And that's really what we're all about, keeping people safe and rescuing them when they need it.' Today 61 full-time employees and three part-timers staff two emergency operations centers around the clock. They rely on data that RapidSOS collects from connected buildings, devices, vehicles and even smart watches to send first responders to emergency scenes. The baseline data is provide free of charge to all 911 centers, Martin said. Mixing technology with emergency response As Hurricane Helene was tracking toward north Florida last September, forecasters were predicting it could hit Tallahassee as a major Category 3 storm. Officials in Leon County, which serves the state's Capitol and nearby counties on legacy 911 equipment, reached out to Collier County, some 430 miles (692 kilometers) to the southeast, to see if they could take over emergency calls if the storm knocked their center out. Helene moved to the east of Tallahassee, but Collier County was prepared to help if needed. 'Because of the partnership with Rapid SOS, they were able to create a map to where not only did we see our own calls, but we could see exactly where the calls were coming in Tallahassee,' Finney said. Collier County has also partnered with Charleston, South Carolina, as a backup 911 center. Each region is fully prepared to take on 911 calls for the other in case their emergency system goes down for any reason. It's a similar story in North Carolina, where legislation in 2017 helped establish funding for a next generation 911 system, said Pokey Harris, who serves as president of the National Association of State 911 Administrators and executive director of the North Carolina 911 Board. Harris said Hurricane Helene provided validation for the upgraded system by being able to direct 911 calls from areas that were devastated by the storm to other parts of North Carolina that were not affected. 'During Helene, if a citizen could reach a dial tone, even though their local 911 center may have been impacted because of infrastructure devastation, another center somewhere in the state could answer their call,' Harris said. No federal funding for next-generation systems Next Generation 911 systems aren't cheap. 'There has been no federal funding for 911,' Martin, of RapidSOS said. 'It has been in various draft formats as long as I've been doing this and it's never gotten through Congress.' There is also no federal oversight of 911, he said. 'It's really quite remarkable how well 911 works despite those challenges,' Martin said. 'I think it's a testament to the people of 911, not the technology.' —Freida Frisaro, Associated Press
