Hurricane Ida, The Aftermath

by Monsey.info

The remnants of Hurricane Ida whipped Rockland County Wednesday night, doing incredible amounts of damage and taking at least nine lives in the Tri-State area.

Following the night of record rain and flash flooding, a New York City police spokesperson said a total of eight people had died when they became trapped in flooded basements. Another person was reported dead in New Jersey.

Videos from across the Jewish communities of New York showed water pouring into basements and coming up through toilets and drains. In one such flooded basement in Williamsburg which was being used as a shul, multiple sifrei torah were rescued by Hatzoloh volunteers, but still sustained heavy water damage.

The National Weather Service recorded a total of 3.15 inches of rain in New York’s Central Park in one hour, far surpassing the 1.94 inches that fell in one hour during Tropical Storm Henri on the night of Aug. 21, which was believed at the time to be the most ever recorded in the park.

O&R announced that 1,481 Rockland County customers lost power due to the storm, while New Jersey had over 60,000 customers experiencing outages.

The damage from Ida on New York was significantly less in magnitude to Hurricane Sandy but was also more wide-ranging as many high elevation areas also got flooded.

In Rockland County, the damage was relatively minor, with major flooding in low-lying areas and roadways stranding cars, but little overall structural damage.