Incessant rains flood the Northeast
ANDOVER: Rescue crews arrived in Vermont on Monday after heavy rains swept parts of the Northeast, forcing evacuations and halting some airline travel. A man died in New York’s Hudson Valley while trying to escape his flooded home.
Mike Cannon of Vermont Urban Search and Rescue said crews from North Carolina, Michigan and Connecticut were among those helping to reach towns that have been inaccessible since torrential rains. It rained heavily in the state.
The towns of Londonderry and Weston were inaccessible and rescue workers were going there for welfare checks, Cannon said. The water level in several dams is being closely monitored. The US Army Engineers said late Monday that they expected water to be released from two dams overnight, causing “severe flooding” downstream that would affect several cities.
Flooding has affected Vermont’s state capital, with Montpelier Town Manager Bill Fraser estimating knee-deep water in much of the city Monday night and a few more feet expected to rise overnight. Montpellier was largely spared during Tropical Storm Irene that hit the region in 2011.
“For us, it is worse than Irene. We got water but it kept on going up and down. Some cellars were flooded, but it didn’t last long,” Fraser said, comparing the flood to the Montpellier Ice Jam in 1992. “We’re completely submerged. The water is much higher than it was during Irene.
During Irene, Vermont received 11 inches (28 cm) of rain in 24 hours. Irene killed six people in the state, toppled homes off their foundations, and damaged or destroyed more than 200 bridges and 500 miles (805 km) of highway.
There have been no reports of injuries or deaths related to the latest flooding in Vermont, according to the state. emergency officer. Roads were closed across the state, including several along the spine of the Green Mountains.
Some went by boat to the Cavendish Baptist Church in Vermont, which had been turned into a shelter. About 30 people waited it out, some of them baking cookies for the firefighters who were working to evacuate and rescue others.
“People are fine. It’s absolutely stressful,” said shelter volunteer Amanda Gross. Vermont Representative Kelly Pazala said she and about a half dozen other people had to be evacuated early Monday from a four-unit apartment building on the West River in Londonderry.
”The river was at our doorstep, said Pajala. “We put some dry clothes and our cats in the car and went to higher ground.” The slow-moving storm reached New England on Sunday morning after hitting parts of New York and Connecticut.
Additional rain in the area has raised the possibility of flash floods; Rainfall exceeded 7 inches (18 cm) in parts of Vermont, the National Weather Service in Burlington said. One of the worst affected places was New York’s Hudson Valley, where police identified a woman as 43-year-old Pamela Nugent.
Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus told The Associated Press that he died while trying to flee his flooded home in the village of Fort Montgomery. The intensity of the flash flood resulted in boulders which crashed into the woman’s house and damaged a portion of its wall.
Two others escaped. “She was trying to get through (the flood) with her dog,” Neuhaus said, “and she got overwhelmed by the tidal waves.” Officials say hundreds of millions of dollars in damage have already been caused by the storm. , In New York, Governor Cathy Hochul told a news conference on Monday that the storm caused “cars to spin off our streets” and “historic” amounts of rain.
“This community got nine inches of rain,” Hochul said during a briefing. A muddy road in Highland Falls. “They’re calling it the ‘1,000-year event.'” As of Monday evening, several washed-out roads in Highland Falls remained impassable, leaving some residents trapped in their homes but otherwise fine, Police Chief Frank Basile said in a telephone interview.
.Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy said there were reports of flooding in central and western Massachusetts and state emergency management officials were in contact with local officials. More than 8 inches (20.32 cm) of rain fell at the US Military Academy at West Point.
This resulted in debris on some roads and some roads were washed away. Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steven W. Gilliland said new cadets and others who recently arrived at the historic academy on the Hudson River are safe, but it will take time to assess the damage.
Atmospheric scientists say catastrophic flooding events around the world have this in common: Storms are forming in a warmer climate, making extreme rainfall just now a reality. Scientists predict that the coming extra heat will make it worse.
The storm has also disrupted air and rail travel. Hundreds of flights were canceled at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports and more than 200 at Boston’s Logan Airport in the past 24 hours, according to the Flightaware website.
Amtrak has temporarily suspended service between Albany and New York. Swift Water rescue teams in Vermont have rescued more than 50 people, primarily in the southern and central regions of the state, Vermont Emergency Management said Monday night.
Buildings flooded on Monday included the Weston Playhouse in Weston, Vermont, which was performing “Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story” to a sold-out audience. Susanna Gellert, executive artistic director of the Weston Theater Company, said the call was made at about 4 a.m. to evacuate 11 people involved with the production. on higher ground and another 15 in nearby Ludlow.
The three-story playhouse, which had been damaged during Irene, was also flooded, with dressing rooms and props rooms also being submerged. “As a theater, we were just starting to come back from the Covid shutdown,” Gellert said. Kara Philbin, 37, of Ludlow,
Vermont, was woken up early Monday by a neighbor who told her to get out of her second-floor apartment because the parking lot was already flooded.
“He told me, ‘You need to get out of here … your car is going to be swept away, and I suggest you don’t stay here,’” Philbin said. The neighbor took her car keys and took her car to a higher location, she said, while she called her parents and then went to her house to escape the storm.
Ross Andrews and his wife were on their way back to their home in Calais, Vermont. on Monday when he saw trucks parked at the 230-year-old dam and crews trying to keep it from failing. Trees were fallen everywhere. “The interstate was closed at our exit. Our road was closed right on our driveway. We managed to make a comeback just in time,” he said.
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