The victims of Hurricane Ida’s brutal attack on the Northeast states include a 65-year-old retired school bus driver who drowned in Pennsylvania in his Mazda after pushing his wife out of the back windshield to save her, a New York rabbi whose vehicle floated off the road as flood water barreled through the state, a family-of-three who drowned in their Queens basement and a Connecticut State Trooper.
The death toll from Ida across the Northeastern states is now 48.
Thirteen people died in New York City – mostly in basement apartments that flooded suddenly on Wednesday night. In New Jersey, more than 20 people died in flooded homes or on the roads.
There were also deaths in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. President Biden is due to visit Louisiana, where the storm battered homes first, later this morning.
As many people died in the Northeast as did in New York City from Hurricane Sandy.
Emergency services are still going door to door looking for victims and searching cars that were abandoned on roads.
Parts of New York City’s subway system remained offline late Thursday night as workers repaired flood damage.
Donald Bauer 65, was driving back from watching his daughter’s college volleyball game in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, when his Mazda became overwhelmed with water. He and his wife Katherine – known as Kate – were in the car.
Bauer pushed his wife into the back of the car and out of the rear window, windshield, telling her to ‘go! go!’. She made her way to a tree and clung on for her life before being rescued an hour later, but he drowned in the vehicle. His body was recovered on Thursday. The couple’s 23-year-old son Darby told AP that his father’s heroism saved his mother’s life.
‘My father started pushing my mom out, and telling her to go and go and go. All she remembers from being pushed out of the car was him touching her one last time, shouting at her to go.
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Don Bauer, 65, saved his wife Kate in the storm floods on Thursday. He pushed her out of the rear window of their SUV but drowned. The couple from Pennsylvania had been married for 26 years and were on their way home from their daughter’s college volleyball game. Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Weissmandel died in his car driving between Monsey and Mount Kisco, New York
Ang Lama, 50, and his two-year-old son (pictured left) drowned inside their basement apartment on Wednesday night along with the two-year-old’s mother, who has not been pictured. They were in their home in Queens, New York City. Right, Connecticut State Trooper Sgt. Brian Mohl who died in his cruiser while on the midnight shift
‘He was selfless down to his last act,’ he said.
The couple had just celebrated their 26th wedding anniversary.
Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Weissmandel was driving from Monsey to his home in Mount Kisco when the roads became overrun with water. He contacted his family and asked them to arrange a rescue.
His son, Moshe Elya, posted a WhatsApp status pleading for help but no one was able to get to him. His body was found in his car on Thursday.
Katherine Bauer clung to a tree and watched the rising waters carry their Mazda SUV out of sight. She was rescued about an hour later.
Donald Bauer’s body was found the next morning. He was still in the vehicle.
The couple had attended their daughter’s college volleyball game and were trying to return to their Perkiomenville home in the worsening storm when their Mazda died and began to float.
Darby Bauer said his father, a 65-year-old retired school bus driver, ‘100%’ saved his mother’s life.
‘Without his help, I don’t think she would’ve gotten out of the car, he said.
Don Bauer was a retired school bus driver. He and his wife Kate were driving home from their daughter Sophie’s college volleyball game in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, when their Mazda SUV was overpowered. Kate clung to a tree for an hour after being pushed out of the car by her husband. The couple are shown with their kids, Darby and Sophie
Sgt. Brian Mohl, 50, was working on a midnight shift in the town of Woodbury when the storm brought torrential rains across the Northeast, sparking flash flood alerts.
‘He was selfless down to his last act,’ Bauer’s son Darby said.
At 3:30am, Mohl radioed for help saying that his cruiser was being swept away near Jack’s Bridge, over the Weekepeemee River, state police Col. Stavros Mellekas said.
‘Troop L received an emergency call from the sergeant that his vehicle was in swift water and that he was in distress.
‘That was the last they heard of him,’ Mellekas said at a press briefing on Thursday afternoon.
Rescue crews scrambled to help but could not locate the cruiser or Mohl.
Troopers tried contacting him, and even pinged the sergeant’s cell phone to find out his location but were unable to find him.
‘We sent all assets right away with the fire departments, dive teams — everything you could imagine,’ Mellekas said.
Ang Lama, 50, Mingma Sherpa, 48, and their two-year-old son, Ang (full name Lobsang), were found dead inside the Woodside, Queens property on Thursday morning.
Headstones at a cemetery that flooded are seen in Somerville, N.J. Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021, after Hurricane Ida barreled through the state
United States Geological Survey workers measure the floodwaters along the Raritan River in Somerville, N.J.
Danny Hong shows where the water reached up to him as he shows the damage in his basement apartment on 153rd St. in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York, Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021, in New York
People standing on an onramp view a flooded section of Interstate 676 in Philadelphia Friday, Sept. 3, 2021 in the aftermath of downpours and high winds from the remnants of Hurricane Ida that hit the area
Workers pump water from a flooded section of Interstate 676 in Philadelphia Friday, Sept. 3, 2021 in the aftermath of downpours and high winds from the remnants of Hurricane Ida that hit the area
A worker scrapes sediment from a flooded section of Interstate 676 in Philadelphia Friday, Sept. 3, 2021 in the aftermath of downpours and high winds from the remnants of Hurricane Ida that hit the area. The cleanup and mourning has continued as the Northeast U.S. recovers from record-breaking rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Ida
The death toll in the Northeast United States from the remnants of Hurricane Ida rose to 46 on Thursday after the region was hit by record rains and dangerous floods. The image above shows Bound Brook, New Jersey on Thursday
United States Geological Survey workers push a boat as they look for residents on a flooded street along the Raritan River in Somerville, N.J.., Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021
A worker washes away sediment left behind from floodwaters in Philadelphia Friday, Sept. 3, 2021 in the aftermath of downpours and high winds from the remnants of Hurricane Ida that hit the area
Water from the flash flood – caused by remnants of Hurricane Ida – began pouring into the family’s basement apartment around 9.30pm Wednesday, as Sherpa frantically dialed her upstairs neighbor for help.
‘The water is coming in right now… The water coming in from the window!’ Sherpa purportedly yelled down the phone to Choi Sledge, who lives on the complex’s third floor.
Choi told The New York Times that she urged the family to ‘get out’ and make their way upstairs. When Choi tried to call back minutes later there was no answer.
The basement apartment features just one door, and occupants can only leave by climbing an external flight of stairs.
Deborah Torres, who lives on the first floor of the complex, says she believes the staircase would have been cascading with rushing water, making it impossible for the family to escape.
‘I think the pressure of the water was too strong that they couldn’t open the door [to get out and up the stairs] ‘ Torres told The New York Daily News. ‘The [basement] was just like a pool with stairs.’
The death toll from Hurricane Ida in the Northeast has risen to 46 across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Connecticut, with pictures from the region showing cars stranded on highways as bodies are found in flooded basement apartments.
BEFORE AND AFTER: The satellite images above show TD Bank Ballpark, home of the Somerset Patriots, the New York Yankees’ AA affiliate, in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey, on August 25 (left) and on Thursday (right)
BEFORE AND AFTER: The satellite images above show Memorial Parkway in New Brunswick, New Jersey on July 14, 2020 (left) and Thursday (right)
BEFORE AND AFTER: The satellite images above show homes and railroad lines in Manville, New Jersey as seen on August 25 (left) and on Thursday (right)
As the scale of the devastation is revealed in the Northeast, president Joe Biden will visit Louisiana on Friday to get a first-hand look at the destruction wrought by Ida that tore through the southern portion of the state and left 1 million people without power.
Biden will take an aerial tour of hard hit communities, including Laffite, Grand Isle, Port Fourchon and Lafourche Parish, before meeting with local leaders in Galliano, Louisiana, the White House said.
On Thursday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it has dispatched a surveillance aircraft to an area in Louisiana hard hit by Hurricane Ida that includes a refinery where an apparent oil spill has been reported.
The fifth most powerful hurricane to strike the United States came ashore in southern Louisiana on Sunday, knocking out power for more than a million customers and water for another 600,000 people, creating miserable conditions for the afflicted who are also enduring suffocating heat and humidity.
At Biden’s direction, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Thursday authorized an exchange of 1.5 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to Exxon Mobil to relieve fuel disruptions in the wake of the hurricane.