Cleanup Begins After Record-Breaking NYC Rainfall and Flooding

According to WABC-TV, cleanup has begun after a record-breaking rainfall caused massive flooding throughout New York City (NYC), and the surrounding Tri-State (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut) area.

Last Friday’s rainfall included 8.65 inches at John F. Kennedy International Airport, which broke the record there for any day in September. Officially, NYC saw 5.86 inches of rain, which was recorded at Central Park. Areas of Brooklyn experienced more than 7.25 inches of rain, including one spot that received 2.5 inches in just an hour’s time.

Flooded streets, subways, and basements caused havoc throughout the area, forcing people to abandon their cars, knocking out subway service, stranding mass transit buses, and requiring the closing of one of LaGuardia Airport’s terminals.

Over the weekend, CBS reports, residents and businesses in the village of Bronxville, New York, one of the hardest areas hit by the flooding, were beginning the clean-up process—pumping water out of buildings, throwing away items that had been ruined by flood waters, and, in nearby Yonkers, New York, clearing out a landslide of mud that inundated the Frank Pepe Pizzeria parking lot and damaged at least 60 cars.

The floods arrived two years after Hurricane Ida broke records with its rainfall in the same area, resulting in the death of at least 13 people in NYC, many of whom were trapped in flooded basements apartments, Associated Press (AP) reports.

According to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, 28 people on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley needed to be rescued from the recent flooding. But, she added, because people heeded early warnings, no lives were lost due to the event.

“We’ve seen a whole lot of rainfall in a very short period of time,” Hochul said at a press briefing on Saturday morning. “But the good news is that the storm will pass, and we should see some clearing of waterways today and tonight.”

The vast flooding in the New York Tri-State area demonstrates how weather that doesn’t initially appear to be extreme can still produce disastrous results. To learn what to do if your facility experiences a flooding event, check out Cleaning Up Safely After a Flood.