Torrential rains turned streets into raging rivers in parts of Connecticut and New York's Long Island, trapping people in cars and a restaurant, covering vehicles in mud, and sweeping two women to their deaths, authorities said. Dramatic rescues unfolded as a foot of rain fell on some parts of western Connecticut late Sunday and early Monday, coming down so fast that it caught drivers unaware. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said more than 100 people were evacuated by search and rescue teams Sunday evening, the AP reports. The bodies of two women who had been in separate cars were recovered Monday in Oxford, a town of 13,000 about 35 miles southwest of Hartford, officials said. Both were Oxford residents.
- Firefighters were trying to get the first woman to safety when the flooded Little River swept her away, Oxford Fire Chief Scott Pelletier said at a news conference with other Connecticut officials. The second woman got out of her car and tried to cling to a sign, but "the racing water was too much" and swept her away, too, he said. "This is a tragic and devastating day for Oxford," the town's first selectman, George Temple, said. US Sen. Richard Blumenthal added, "Who would have thought the Little River would turn into a gushing torrent of destruction, which is what happened."
In Oxford, rushing waters surrounded the Brookside Inn, trapping 18 people. Firefighters stretched a long ladder like a bridge across the floodwaters to reach them as cars and other large debris carried by the torrent smashed into the building, said Jeremy Rodorigo, a firefighter from neighboring Beacon Falls. One by one, people crawled across the ladder to safety. The firefighters also rescued a woman and a small dog from an apartment next door, Rodorigo said.
- Ed Romaine, the executive of Long Island's Suffolk County, said that hundreds of homes were affected by flooding and that mudslides covered the roofs of cars in some areas. He joined other officials at a news conference near a pond in Stony Brook where a dam breached and destroyed a section of a road and flooded homes.
- Town of Brookhaven Supervisor Dan Panico called the flooding "an environmental and economic disaster." "Millions of gallons of water, turtles, fish, everything is downstream along with the personal belongings of many of the houses that were flooded," Panico said.
- The storm system that hit Connecticut and then moved on to Long Island was separate from Hurricane Ernesto, which on Monday was over the open Atlantic Ocean but still expected to cause powerful swells, dangerous surf, and rip currents along the East Coast.
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