At least six people were killed on Tuesday as Tropical Storm Isaias spawned tornadoes and dumped rain along the US east coast after making landfall as a hurricane in North Carolina.
Two people died when Isaias spun off a tornado that struck a North Carolina mobile home park. Another person died in Pennsylvania when their vehicle was overtaken by water and swept downstream. Two others were killed by falling trees toppled by the storm in Maryland and New York City, and a sixth person died in Delaware when a tree branch fell on them, authorities said.
Isaias had top wind speeds of up to 105kph more than 18 hours after coming ashore, but it was down to winds of at most 72kph as of 10:50pm on Tuesday, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
Photo: AFP
As Isaias sped northward into Canada, flooding threats followed.
The Schuylkill River in Philadelphia was projected to crest early yesterday at 4.7m, its highest level in more than 150 years.
By Tuesday night, the river had already topped its banks in low-lying Manayunk, turning bar-lined Main Street into a coffee-colored canal.
Photo: AFP
Aerial video by WRAL-TV showed fields of debris where rescue workers in brightly colored shirts picked through splintered boards and other wreckage of the Windsor, North Carolina, mobile home park where two people were killed.
Emergency responders searching the area found no other casualties, and several people initially feared missing had all been accounted for, Bertie County Board of Commissioners Chairman Ron Wesson said.
About 12 people were hospitalized, Wesson said.
“It doesn’t look real; it looks like something on TV. Nothing is there,” Bertie County Sheriff John Holley told reporters, adding that 10 mobile homes had been destroyed.
“All my officers are down there at this time. Pretty much the entire trailer park is gone,” Holley said.
In eastern Pennsylvania, a 44-year-old Allentown woman was killed after encountering high waters on a street in Upper Saucon that swept her vehicle downstream, the Lehigh County coroner’s office said.
In New York City, a massive tree fell and crushed a van in the Briarwood section of Queens, killing Mario Siles, a 60-year-old construction contractor who was inside the vehicle, police said.
A woman in Mechanicsville, Maryland, died when a tree fell onto her car during stormy conditions, St Mary’s County sheriff’s office spokeswoman Julie Yingling said.
In Delaware, authorities said a woman was outside assessing storm damage when she was hit and killed by a falling tree branch.
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