Two men died during a record-breaking rainfall that drenched the New York City metro area Thursday afternoon — a 39-year-old man found unconscious and unresponsive in a flooded basement in Brooklyn, and a 43-year-old man who died in a flooded basement boiler room in Manhattan, police said.
First responders found the man unconscious and unresponsive in an inundated basement near Kingston Ave. and Rutland Road in Prospect Lefferts Gardens around 5 p.m., according to police. He was rushed to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The man’s identity was not immediately released, but a police source and several friends at the scene identified him as Aaron Akaberi.
Akaberi lived in the basement apartment. “He was staying there with a few guys when the basement flooded. He went back in to save his dogs,” said Aymen Kadri, 35. “He got one out and went back to rescue the other. He was electrocuted, and then he drowned,” Kadri said. “I just came from the hospital.”
“They had to get a whole diving team to get him out,” said Akaberi’s roommate Akiva Schulman, 25. “He looked like what you see in a movie. He looked like a dead body that had been fished out of the river. His body was covered in leaves. The whole basement was flooded right up to the first floor, and then 3 more feet,” Schulman said.
In Manhattan, a 43-year old man was found dead in the boiler room in a flooded basement in Washington Heights just before 5 p.m., cops said.
Meanwhile, tornado damage threatened New Jersey residents, and a flash-flood warning was issued for Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx until 5 p.m. by the National Weather Service as torrential rains and gusty winds whipped through the New York City metro area Thursday.
Central Park was swamped with 1.8 inches of rain, breaking the record of 1.64 inches set in 1917, according to the NWS. LaGuardia Airport was hit with 1.97 inches, smashing the 1955 mark of 1.18 inches.
Wind gusts up to 50 mph accompanied the storm, according to the NWS. New York City residents are warned to expect sudden bursts of heavy rain, reduced visibility and possible power outages from downed trees or power lines, the city’s emergency management center posted on X.
After briefly subsiding tonight, strong easterly winds were predicted starting Friday morning and strengthening through the evening.
In Brooklyn, the intense downpour flooded streets, with social media posts appearing to show cars partially submerged in several inches of water.
City Councilwoman Susan Zhuang cautioned people to avoid Eighth Ave. in southern Brooklyn, with flooding impacting traffic and street vendors.
The storm created a hectic afternoon for New York City transit straphangers, with delays throughout Brooklyn.
G train service on the cross-borough Brooklyn-Queens line was suspended in both directions between the Bedford-Nostrand station and Court Square shortly before the evening rush, with flooding near the Greenpoint Ave. station in north Brooklyn.
Nos. 2 and 5 trains were experiencing delays in East Flatbush after water inundated the tracks near the Newkirk Ave. station. Water on the tracks of the Fourth Ave. line near the 86th St. station in Bay Ridge was causing delays on the R train. The L was also hamstrung by the weather as water on the tracks between the Bushwick-Aberdeen stop and the Wilson Ave. stop caused delays on the Canarsie line.
A downed tree near Sheepshead Bay on the Brighton subway line had also caused delays for the B and Q trains, though that tree had been removed by late afternoon.
Euclid Ave.-bound C trains were running express between Hoyt-Schermerhorn and Broadway Junction as crews worked to remove water from the tracks at Utica Ave.
The Long Island Expressway was closed in both directions at Springfield Blvd. in Queens due to flooding, according to the NYCEM.
Heavy rain is expected on and off until about 10 p.m. Queens is under a flood advisory until 8 a.m. tomorrow.
With Rocco Parascandola
