A rare flash flood emergency was triggered for communities north of New York City on Sunday after torrential rains led to unprecedented flooding and resulted in one death.
One of the worst hit places was the Hudson Valley, where rescuers found the body of Pamela Nugent, of Fort Montgomery, whose home was surrounded by water.
"Her house was taking too much water, she was with her dog and her fiancé literally saw her swept away," Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news conference Monday.
The force of the flash flooding dislodged boulders, which rammed into the woman’s house and damaged part of its wall, Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus told The Associated Press. Two other people escaped.
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“She was trying to get through (the flooding) with her dog,” Neuhaus said, “and she was overwhelmed by tidal wave-type waves.”
Ed Nugent still numb Monday over the death of his daughter, who lived just a few houses down from her father.
The 43-year-old worked at an engineering firm in New York City and graduated from NYU. Her father said Nugent and her fiancé were trying to move their cars to higher ground.
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"Rob went to his car, he came out of my house and tried to cross the street. He went down. I came flying out of the house. I’m pretty agile so I took three jumps and got across. Dove down to the bank there. Hung on to the telephone and grabbed Rob and pulled him off the road," Ed Nugent said.
He was able to save his daughter's fiance, but was unable to get to her.
"We yelled at her, ‘get back in the house.’ She went back in and panicked again. She grabbed the dog and came out. As soon as she hit the road, water hit her and took her down," her father added.
"Two seconds she was gone. She tried to grab the car, she couldn’t. She tried to grab some bushes, she couldn’t. Went over the hill. The dog that’s on the porch there. She went with her," her dad said.
First responders later found Pamela’s body down the hill in a ravine.
He said many roads and bridges were washed out. Officials believed everyone was accounted for, but they were trying to reach people to make sure they were OK.
Officials say the storm has already wrought tens of millions of dollars in damage. Hochul said that the storm sent “cars swirling in our streets” and dumped a “historic” amount of rain.
“Nine inches of rain in this community,” Hochul said during a briefing on a muddy street in Highland Falls. “They’re calling this a ‘1,000 year event.’”
“It seems like the worst has passed in terms of the volume coming down. But now our job is to make sure that the roads and the bridges are passable,” Hochul said at second briefing in a hard-hit section of the Finger Lakes.
The tragic weather developments unfolded so rapidly that one woman who helped neighbors evacuate at her apartment complex said everyone jumped in to help as the first floor filled with water.
"Everyone was down their with umbrellas carrying people out of windows, getting people out of doors, making sure people had what they needed. Some of my neighbors were able to open their doors to them, so there are some apartments that are full of people right now," Highland Falls resident Melissa Roberts said.
The devastation and sudden life-threatening weather event triggered a rare flash flood emergency. Such an alert has only been issued once before in recent memory, officials said Monday.
According to Hochul, the severe weather over the weekend stranded passengers on Amtrak trains, stranded more than 700 people in Putnam County Sunday night."
According to Hochul, the first step is to assess the damage and obtain FEMA assistance. Her office said around 5,500 people in upstate were still without power as of Monday morning, with Orange and Ontario counties remaining under a state of emergency.
The severe weather was expected to continue north in Albany and Champlain area -- moving farther east to Vermont. The governor went on to say that there is no further damage expected for New York at the moment.
According to the governor's office, around 5,500 people in upstate are still without power as of Monday morning, with Orange and Ontario counties remaining under a state of emergency.
The American Red Cross has set up two shelters nto assist those impacted by the storms and subsequent floodings: one in Ontario County at the Canandaigua Town Hall (5440 Route 5 & 20 West, Canandaigua) and in Orange County at the Sacred Heart School (7 Cozzens Avenue, Highland Falls).
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point was pounded with more than 8 inches of rain that sent debris sliding onto some roads and washed others out. Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steven W. Gilland said the recently arrived new cadets and others at the historic academy on the Hudson River were safe, but that assessing the damage will take time.
Atmospheric scientists say destructive flooding events across the globe have this in common: Storms are forming in a warmer atmosphere, making extreme rainfall a reality right now. The additional warming that scientists predict is coming will only make it worse.
The storm also interrupted air and rail travel. There were hundreds of flight cancellations at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports and more than 200 canceled at Boston's Logan Airport in the last 24 hours, according to the Flightaware website. Amtrak temporarily suspended service between Albany and New York.
