Hurricane Ida kills at least 23 in northwestern United States

At least 23 people have died due to torrential rains, floods and strong winds as the remnant of Hurricane Ida passed through the northeastern United States, most in the state of New Jersey, according to the latest accounts by the authorities collected by the local media.

Fourteen of the deceased have been reported in New Jersey, of which five were in the same apartment complex in the town of Elizabeth, and another nine victims have been registered in New York, especially in the neighborhoods of Queens and Brooklyn, including a 2-year-old boy, indicated the NBC channel.

The Chief of the New York Police, Dermot Shea, reported this morning that eight of the nine deaths have occurred “in homes and residential basements” in the Big Apple, to which is added a person who died after a traffic accident in the road through Central Park.

Thousands of people have had to be evacuated from areas of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut due to the floods that the remains of Hurricane Ida, already degraded to a storm, have caused in the area, with rains that the authorities have described as historic and that have set records.

The water flooded basements of buildings, trapping people in their homes, as was the case of a 22-year-old young man and his mother who died in a basement in Queens, according to the ABC7 channel, or of an old man who was in his vehicle in Passaic, NJ.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who declared a state of emergency Wednesday night, told a news conference Thursday that US President Joe Biden has offered federal assistance to assess the damage and has asked “the money to flow” as soon as possible to devastated homes and businesses.

The storms are part of the remnants of Hurricane Ida, which, already degraded to a storm, has crossed the eastern part of the country since it entered the state of Mississippi and Louisiana, where it caused severe flooding and at least six deaths.

In New York City, practically all the subway lines were suspended when it was flooded by real floods and waterfalls that fell both from the stairs of the stations and from the roofs of the tunnels, incidents registered by citizens and that today circulated on social media.