Two Dead In New Jersey As Authorities Warn Of Heavier Downpours

Two people died in New Jersey after their vehicle was caught in the floodwaters and submerged before being swept away, local media reports said.

Governor Phil Murphy said that the unfortunate incident happened in the northern New Jersey city of Plainfield.

Reports say that at the height of the storm, the vehicle was swept into a brook, and despite the swift action by emergency teams, both people inside it died.

Authorities are yet to declare the names of the two deceased.

Murphy said that, “We’re not unique, but we’re in one of these sort of high humidity, high temperature, high storm intensity patterns right now.”

“Everybody needs to stay alert,” he was quoted as saying by the local media reports.

New York and south-central Pennsylvania also witnessed heavy downpours early Tuesday, resulting in flash floods in the areas.

The two places also reported road closures and disruption on the New York City subway.

Reports said that the five centimeters of rain is the second highest rainfall recorded in an hour in Central Park.

The highest rainfall in an hour was recorded during Hurricane Ida in 2021, reports added.

Meanwhile, a video doing the rounds on social media displayed the emergency-like situation at a Manhattan subway station.

The video showed floodwater gushing down into the station, and passengers watched in shock as it submerged the platform in no time.

In response, Janno Lieber, the CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said that unprecedented rain and floods overloaded the sewer system of the city.

“We’ve been working with the city of New York to try to get them to increase the capacity of the system at these key locations,” local media reports quoted him as saying.

Liber stated that all services have been successfully restored to the subway as hundreds of operators worked through the night to repair it.

New York’s subway system has been particularly vulnerable to floods despite years of efforts at a cost of billions of dollars to make it waterproof.

Meanwhile, reports said authorities have warned that floods may cause a “catastrophic” level of damage to the two cities of Virginia state: Colonial Heights and Petersburg.

Reports further said that the heaviest downpour is shifting to the east but with weaker intensity.

The rainfall follows the dangerous flash floods, which resulted in the death of more than 130 people in Texas.

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