Hurricane Ida’s death toll continued to rise on Sunday, with many in the US Northeast holding out hope for people missing in the floodwaters, while nearly 600,000 customers in Louisiana still lacked power a week after the storm made landfall.
Ida slammed into Louisiana on August 29 as a powerful Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 240 kilometers per hour. The latest death toll there rose to at least 13 people on Sunday.
The storm weakened as it moved north but still unleashed flash flooding on the East Coast that killed at least 50 more people, according to updated numbers on Sunday.
Ida’s record-breaking rainfall of 7.8 centimeters per hour on Wednesday, recorded in New York City’s Central Park, sent walls of water cascading through businesses, public transportation systems and 1,200 homes, causing more than $50 million in damage, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said.
“The human toll was tremendous,” said Hochul, recounting a trip to East Elmhurst in the New York City borough of Queens to assess the devastation. “One woman wept in my arms, an 89-year-old woman. She had nothing left after living in that home for over 40 years,” Hochul said.
The governor previously secured an emergency disaster declaration from President Joe Biden and signed paperwork on Sunday to request related federal money to cover the costs of temporary housing as well as rebuilding homes, possibly in less flood-prone locations.
Among the missing were two college students last seen in Passaic, New Jersey, on Wednesday as Ida’s historic deluge was reported to have swept them away in the raging Passaic River.
Cars sit sunken on Highway 440 after a flash flood in Bayonne, New Jersey, the US on Wednesday. Multiple tornadoes may have touched down in New Jersey as the remnants of Hurricane Ida ripped through the state. Photo: AFP
