1 dead, 1 missing in Connecticut flash flood

OXFORD, Conn. – Torrential rain flooded parts of Connecticut, washing out roads, trapping people in cars and a restaurant, and reportedly sweeping two people into a river. At least one person died in the storm, which also caused problems in New Jersey and on New York’s Long Island late Sunday and early Monday, authorities said.

As much as 10 inches (25.4 centimeters) of rain fell on some parts of western Connecticut, coming down so fast that it caught drivers unaware as roads quickly turned into rushing rivers.

The body of a woman who disappeared during the storm in was recovered Monday in Oxford, about 35 miles southwest of Hartford, Oxford Fire Chief Scott Pellitier told the New Haven Register. Crews were still looking for a second woman who washed away as firefighters tried to rescue her, he said.

Gov. Ned Lamont said more than 100 people were evacuated by search and rescue teams around the state as of Sunday evening.

Amtrak halted service between Philadelphia and New York’s Penn Station for several hours Sunday evening because of flooding on the tracks in New Jersey. Service was restored, though several trains between Washington and New York were canceled Monday morning because of unspecified “equipment unavailability.” Flooding also suspended service on a branch of the Metro-North Railroad in Connecticut.

In Southbury, Connecticut, a bystander filmed as Lucas Barber waded through chest-deep water to help a man whose car had become largely submerged in a flash flood.

“I pulled over, grabbed some rope that’s in the back of my car for emergencies, and threw my phone and wallet on the seat and ran out there,” Barber told The New York Times.

Barber pulled the trapped driver, Patrick Jennings, out of the floating car along with his golden retriever.

“He got me all the way out of the water, the dog comes swimming up and the rest is history,” Jennings told the Times.

Another dramatic rescue took place at a restaurant in Oxford, where the Brookside Inn became surrounded by a rushing torrent of water. Eighteen people trapped inside the building were rescued by firefighters who stretched a ladder across the floodwaters to reach them.

The water was “literally enveloping this whole restaurant,” Jeremy Rodorigo, a firefighter from the neighboring town of Beacon Falls, said Monday. “And we were worried about the structural integrity of the restaurant because there were literally cars floating by and large objects hitting the building.”

The firefighters also rescued a woman and a small dog from an apartment next to the restaurant, Rodorigo said.

The weather service declared a flash flood warning for parts of Fairfield, New Haven, Litchfield, and Hartford counties, the state’s emergency management services said on the social platform X.

National Weather Service meteorologist James Tomasini said the flooding was unrelated to 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 U.S. East Coast.