News Desk: A mother, father and son died by drowning when the remnants of Hurricane Ida poured catastrophic amounts of rain across the East Coast on Wednesday, leaving at least 50 people dead.
Rosa Espinal, 72, and her husband Jose Torres, 71, along with their 38-year-old son Jose Torres died when more than a dozen feet of rain drenched their apartment in a residential complex in Elizabeth, New Jersey, city spokesperson Kelly Martins told on Friday. Their neighbor, 33-year-old Shakia Garrett, also drowned, Martins said.
About 20 miles north, rescue workers are searching for two childhood friends whom witnesses say were swept into a storm drain in Passaic Wednesday evening.
Nidhi Rana, 18, and Ayush Rana, 21, are among the six people still missing in New Jersey that crews are trying to locate, Passaic Mayor Hector Lora said. Nidhi's father, Prakash Rana, said the two are friends and not related.
“It's such a challenge because there is no moving forward. It's almost like grief in limbo. You don't know what's going on. You don't know whether you're grieving a loss, or you are still concerned whether missing individuals can be found — even though everything may say they won't, you still hope for the very best,” Lora told CNN Friday.
At least 25 people died in New Jersey and 18 died in New York state, according to officials. President Joe Biden has approved an emergency declaration for those two states, the White House said late Thursday.
The storm — by then remnants of a tropical depression — unleashed deadly flooding Wednesday from Virginia to New England, but especially from metro Philadelphia to New Jersey and southern New York. That came after Ida devastated parts of the Gulf Coast as a major hurricane Sunday.
Of the dozens killed in the East, many died in flooded homes — including many in flooded basements — or while overtaken by water in or outside their vehicles. Four people died in Pennsylvania, and one each in Maryland, Connecticut and Virginia in the storm.
In New York City, 10 of the city's 13 victims were found in illegally converted basement or cellar apartments, officials said Friday.
“We know the basement apartments create a whole set of particular challenges,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in his Friday briefing. “We are now going to be speaking — going forward — to people who live in basement apartments, specific messages, specific cell phone alerts, telling people about the vulnerabilities they face in these kinds of rain events.”
