The remnants of Hurricane Ida swept the Northeast U.S. Wednesday, resulting in reports of heavy flooding and dramatic water rescues of stranded residents normally seen in more southern hurricane zones.
Hundreds of thousands of residents lost power and a number of deaths are being investigated as being a result of the storm.
New York City itself was forced to issue an historic ban on travel through Wednesday night.
The National Weather Service issued at least five flash flood emergencies Wednesday evening from Philadelphia to New Jersey, and urged all residents to stay off the roads. Many roads were closed by authorities.
One flash flood emergency was also issued for New York City and extended until early Thursday morning where “rainfall rates are expected to be as high as 3 to 5 inches an hour.”
As a result, New York City issued a travel ban in the wake of flooding that suspended virtually all of the city’s subway lines. The ban required all non-emergency vehicles off the streets and was in place until 5 a.m. Thursday morning.
The New York Fire Department said Thursday morning that its rescuers were working to remove people from flooded roadways and subways across NYC.
"We're enduring an historic weather event tonight with record breaking rain across the city, brutal flooding and dangerous conditions on our roads," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Twitter.
"We will have a tough few hours coming up until we get the rain out of here," de Blasio told CNN affiliate WCBS. "I have never seen this much rainfall this quickly. It is absolutely astounding ... We are talking three inches, four inches in an hour. Unbelievable accumulation."
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told CNN Wednesday evening that the rain dumped on the state by the remnant of Hurricane Ida was "far more than anyone really expected," and left the entire Northeast coast in "a very dire situation."
"We can take all the precautions in advance, and we did deploy our assets to be on the ground in anticipation, but mother nature will do whatever she wants, and she is really angry tonight," Hochul said.
Ida was a Category 4 hurricane when it made landfall in Louisiana on the weekend. While it was subsequently downgraded, the storm continued to dump heavy rain on its way north up the heavily populated U.S. coast. CNN reports more than 60 million people were under flood watches in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast as Ida swept through.
