NEW YORK – New Yorkers on Friday continued to dry out and clean up following Tropical Storm Ida as police tried to identify five of at least 13 people killed during the disaster, officials said.
The dead, including an autistic 14-month-old boy and an 86-year-old woman, became victims of catastrophic flooding after the devastating weather system dumped record-breaking rain on the boroughs late Wednesday night.
Eleven of the fatalities occurred in six incidents in Queens. Two victims died in separate incidents in Brooklyn.
Two women and a man found dead in a flooded basement on Peck Ave. in Kissena Park, Queens, a man burned to death inside a car on the Grand Central Parkway and a man found floating off Sunset Park remained unidentified Friday morning. All five deaths were believed to be storm-related, an NYPD spokesman said.
“It’s one of the most difficult storms I have ever seen in my 30 years, since Hurricane Sandy,” NYPD Chief of Department Rodney Harrison said Thursday during a press conference at the department’s Emergency Services Unit headquarters at Floyd Bennett Field.
An additional 25 families had to be relocated from their water-damaged homes, while 496 vehicles were left abandoned by their owners on city roads, officials said.
“In the vicinity of the Grand Central Parkway, by the U.S. Open, there were numerous motorists stuck in the water,” said NYPD Chief of Special Operations Division Harry Wedin. “One of the people involved was an 88-year-old female with dementia. A 94-year-old male with hyperthermia that was stuck in this water for a while. We were able to get them all to safety and get them medical care, and get them the treatment they needed right away.”
In the Bronx, Emergency Service Unit cops rescued a pregnant woman and a man from a flooded car, officials said.
Before the night was through, ESU officers wearing wetsuits made 166 rescues, including Inwood resident Emilio Flores, who suffers from diabetes and lost both legs. When the water began to pour into his apartment, Flores couldn’t get to his wheelchair and was left alone in the dark with his dog Chopin, the 70-year-old grandfather remembered.
“I was staying calm, but Chopin was getting nervous,” Flores said.
The night of tragedy saw a number of dramatic rescues.
“There was a male stranded on the BQE, standing on top of a box truck, eight feet of water around the vehicle,” Wedin recounted. “One of the members of the Emergency Service Unit donned a dry suit, a life preserver and was tethered to his partner on shore, swam out to the truck with another life preserver, climbed up on the truck, put it on the male, and they were both pulled back to the shore by the member still on shore.”
As of Thursday night, sections of the Bronx River Parkway remained closed as cops and tow truck operators moved the abandoned vehicles to a nearby tow pound. Anyone forced to abandon their car during the storm can call 311 to find out where their vehicle was relocated, officials said.
Underground, 835 train commuters had to be rescued along the 4, 6, R, N and E lines as water cascaded.
“Preparing for these storms is something that we take very seriously, but as we’ve seen, these storms are getting worse and worse,” Wedin said. “We try to prepare the best we can with the personnel that we have to adequately respond to every job.”
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