what is the overriding issue in these basements that causes them to get flooded to this extent? is it just the volume of water? yeah. yeah. i mean, this was an extreme water event. i mean, this was an extreme weather event where obviously our sewer system could not keep up with the face of the storm that came in. so the number one way to ensure that we don t see flooding, and we saw this in communities. we still need more from fema and the army corp. but the bottom line is where infrastructure investment was put in, normally in places where we saw flooding, we didn t see it this time. we need this $3.5 trillion plan to pass, and new york city needs to get a large bulk of that to bring these communities infrastructure up to grade and up to par. yeah. infrastructure is not a boring word. it is not a boring topic when it
five hours. and in newark, wettest single day on record, almost 8.5 inches came down on wednesday, wednesday night, that is a 1,000 year recurrence interval, meaning 1 in 1,000 chance for this to occur. even for new york city, 3 plus inches coming down between 8:51 and 9:51 last night, also a it 00 ye 200 year occurrence interval causing the destruction that we re seeing. unbelievable. thank you so much for that. and it is still ongoing here. the mayor of trenton is ordering evacuations for some parts of that city by 8:00 a.m. because rising tide levels are still a danger. so this is a water event that is ongoing. cnn spoke to one woman who said it was like living through a monsoon. listen. i was out with a friend and we were just got stuck in the
these neighboring counties were rivers, actual rivers. we talked to a police officer about an hour ago who was saying some of these cars that they are towing away this morning smashed up by water. they would just come all the way down. we saw one car that was being pulled away maybe a quarter mile down the road we found the front bumper of that car. so this is a water event here that is something that is simply record-breaking. the basements of many of these homes are complete losses. will have to be gutted, water just gushing through windows and in some cases coming through the concrete and lynn knoll yum. s la knlynn knoll lum. and of course it all began in louisiana, this is the story of hurricane ida and it will be a long recovery for louisiana. we ll go there next.
again, as you guys were saying, this is in the southern part of the state. if you go to the northern part of new jersey it was the deluge of water. i was through some of it myself last night and the flooding was absolutely incredible, and yet here they were dealing with tornados, tornados that just kept whirling and whirling around, and it seemed to last an absolute staggering amount of time. the terror many felt here, without much warning some had warning on their phones and that was about it. but, again, still trying to figure out what happened here. they are saying they are getting both state and federal help, and a lot of them really looking for it right now. as i said, they did not expect the ferocity of that kind of a tornado to go through this community even though at the very last minute they did get those watches on their phones and were told to head for the basement. wow. a wind event there in mullica hill. paula newton, thanks so much. let s go to the water event. pete
terrifying in the water coming into people s basements. christine romans has been up live all morning from the wee hours of the morning, christine in clifton, new jersey. what have you been seeing since you got out there this morning? you really got the first pictures, the first look at what happened. reporter: well, where we are, this is a water event. this is flash flooding and this is historic record-setting kind of water here. you have got rivers that used to be streets, quite frankly. washing cars away like rubber duckies in a bathtub. and now people are trying to get out there and find their cars and figure out what to do next. even as their emptying out basements and trying to survey the water damage. that is the least of it. you have water rescues underway still and people still trapped in rising waters in other parts of new jersey. southern new jersey for example.