New rains are scheduled along the east coast of the United States, already stretched on Tuesday, after sudden floods caused two dead and caused numerous disturbances in the New York region, where metro stations have been flooded.
Important floods hit the New York region and the neighboring state of New Jersey overnight Monday to Tuesday, following the torrential rains caused by a stationary storm system.
In the commune of Plainfield (New Jersey), two people died on Monday after their vehicle was swept through the Cedar Brook river, the authorities deplored.
“We, New Jersey, America, the whole world, we are swept away by the climate,” said New Jersey Phil Murphy on Tuesday. According to the scientific community, climate change caused by human activity makes meteorological events like floods or droughts more frequent and more intense.
Meteorological services in the New York Region have recorded accumulation of exceptional precipitation, causing large disruptions in transport and numerous rescue operations.
According to meteorological services, some New York districts received between 38 and 45 millimeters of rain in less than two hours, rare precipitation levels. In New Jersey, the cumulators have locally reached 150 millimeters. The saturation of soils and drainage networks has contributed to aggravating overflows.
As on the occasion of previous torrential rains, impressive images of local media and social networks showed stations from the New York metro, a gigantic and aging network, completely flooded, especially on line 1, very popular, in Manhattan.
The sewer networks in the largest American city are designed to withstand rains of 44 millimeters per hour and are regularly overwhelmed.
Emergency
In New York, JFK, Laguardia and Newark airports temporarily suspended departures on Monday. Massive traffic jams have paralyzed several main arteries of the city.
“A mass of summer air rich in humidity on a large part of the East and the center of the United States will continue to give rise to scattered or generalized thunderstorms that can produce strong showers and sudden floods,” said National Weather Service (NWS) in its forecasts for the days of Tuesday and Wednesday.
The majority of the next thunderstorms must occur Tuesday in Virginia and North Carolina, then they will progress to the north, reaching on Wednesday an area including Ohio, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, according to this bulletin.
The governor of New Jersey has already declared the state of emergency in several counties, calling on the inhabitants to stay at home. The authorities warned against dangerous traffic conditions and increased risks of sudden floods in densely populated urban areas.
In New Jersey, the emergency services intervened many occasions to help blocked motorists or residents isolated by the rise of waters, especially in the Newark region.
Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania were also affected. A sudden flood alert was still underway in the center of Virginia on Tuesday, according to the NWS.
The strongest rains shifted east on Tuesday, but the authorities call for vigilance, certain roads remaining impractical and the transport networks being still partially disturbed. Rehabilitation work is underway.
The question of adapting urban areas to extreme climatic events is again raised by these floods. Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic candidate for New York town hall, said on X that city infrastructure had to be modernized to face “this new climate reality”.
This article was published automatically. Sources: ATS / AFP