Thousands without power across Northeast after Ida remnants trigger floods

NEW YORK - Thousands of customers were without power Thursday in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania after torrential rain from remnants of Hurricane Ida pummeled the region, causing deadly flooding and halted transit systems.

The New York City area, Long Island and areas in the Hudson Valley north of the city saw more than 25,000 customers without power as of Thursday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.US, which tracks outages among various utility companies.

More than 71,000 outages were reported in Pennsylvania, while 47,000 outages were being tracked in New Jersey.

Ida’s remnants dumped historic rain on New York City, with at least 26 deaths linked to flooding across the region.

At least 12 people died in New York City, police said, one of them in a car and eight in flooded basement apartments that often serve as relatively affordable homes in one of the nation’s most expensive housing markets. Officials said at least eight died in New Jersey and three in Pennsylvania's suburban Montgomery County; one was killed by a falling tree, one drowned in a car and another in a home. An on-duty state trooper in Connecticut was swept away in his cruiser and later taken to a hospital, state police and local authorities said.

Flooding also swamped subway cars and submerged vehicles and homes.

Video captured by New York City residents showed floodwaters pouring into the city’s underground subway system. Streets in Brooklyn resembled waterways in a video shared late Wednesday, which shows vehicles attempting to drive through deep floodwaters and people wading through it.

Brooklyn streets submerged as New York hit by severe floods

Streets in New York’s Brooklyn borough resembled waterways on Sept. 1, 2021, as remnants of Hurricane Ida brought severe flooding to the area. Credit - John Miller via Storyful

A state of emergency was declared late Wednesday evening in New York City and the rest of the state. Ida’s remnants were exiting the country, but not without tornadoes in other parts of the Northeast.

"We’re enduring an historic weather event tonight with record-breaking rain across the city, brutal flooding and dangerous conditions on our roads," De Blasio wrote on Twitter.

At least two tornadoes were reported in the mid-Atlantic (https://www.fox5ny.com/news/ida-threatens-to-dump-large-amounts-of-rain-across-region) where homes were now rubble in Mullica Hill, New Jersey, just outside of Philadelphia. Police in Connecticut were investigating a report of a person missing due to the flooding in Woodbury.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. It was reported from Cincinnati and Los Angeles.