Three days after Ida devastated the region, residents are still cleaning up the mess.
Flood-stricken families and business owners across the Northeast were hauling waterlogged belongings to the curb Saturday and scraping away noxious mud as cleanup from the deadly remnants of Hurricane Ida moves into high gear.
The White House said President Joe Biden will survey storm damage in New York City and Manville, New Jersey, on Tuesday.
The mud-caked sidewalks of Cranford, New Jersey, were lined with the detritus of the suburban dream: household items and furnishings that once made a cozy home reduced to rubbish by the sudden storm waters that swamped homes, cars and businesses and killed at least 50 people in six eastern states.
This community along the normally placid Rahway River experienced major flooding when Ida arrived in the Northeast with furious rainfall that in places topped 8 inches (20 centimeters) Wednesday and Thursday.
The main foes during the massive cleanup: muck, mud and sewage.
“The sewer backed up into our basement and now we have to get it deep-cleaned,” said Dave Coughlin, one of many residents on his street near the river busily engaged in dragging ruined possessions to the curb. He and his wife, Christina, were taking their two young children to stay somewhere else temporarily while the cleanup progressed.
“I don’t want them breathing this stuff in or smelling the bleach,” he said.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy was out in the Garden State on Friday to survey the damage from Wednesday's unprecedented flooding. Chris Glorioso reports.
After touring a flood-wrecked apartment complex on the banks of the Raritan River Saturday in Piscataway, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy warned residents about the potentially harmful contaminants left behind.
“You have to assume the worst,” he said. "If you’re in there, you want to have windows and doors open.”
Abid Mian, whose unit in the apartment complex was ruined by 5 feet (1.5 meters) of flood waters that necessitated his family’s rescue by boat, is considering moving.
“Even on a good day, before this, I would sometimes smell fumes coming up from the river, or a really bad stink. This is the third this time this has happened in the last 10 years." he said.
The complex was littered with ruined cars, some with their doors and hoods splayed open in a futile effort to dry them; they were coated with mud and silt throughout their interiors. Two cars had been swept from the parking lot onto the banks of the river, and a tennis court was destroyed. Large trash receptacles were being brought to the complex to start to haul away the debris Saturday.
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A man falls off his bike into a flooded street the morning after the remnants of Hurricane Ida drenched the New York City and New Jersey area on Sept. 2, 2021 in Hoboken, New Jersey.
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A fallen tree is blocked off in Central Park following a night of heavy wind and rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ida on Sept. 2, 2021 in New York City.
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Cars sit abandoned on the flooded Major Deegan Expressway following a night of extremely heavy rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ida on Sept. 2, 2021, in the Bronx borough of New York City.
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Court staff clean the rain off the courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York, on September 1, 2021.
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Comcast utility workers survey the damage from a tornado on West Street in Annapolis, Maryland on Sept. 1, 2021. The remnants of Hurricane Ida spawned a tornado that touched down in Annapolis, Maryland on Wednesday afternoon.
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A sinkhole that formed in the Berkshire Square Shopping Center parking lot in Wyomissing, Pa., Wednesday afternoon. The remnants of Hurricane Ida move across the East Coast.
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Vehicles under water in Philadelphia, Sept. 2, 2021 in the aftermath of downpours and high winds from the remnants of Hurricane Ida that hit the area.
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A girl talks to a driver after she walked across a flooded Main street in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Remnants of Hurricane Ida are moving up the East Coast causing flooding and evacuations in low lying communities.
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NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 02: Cars sit abandoned on a flooded highway following a night of extremely heavy rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ida on September 02, 2021 in the Bronx borough of New York City. Multiple fatalities have been reported in the region after the storm passed through, causing massive flooding and a widespread disruption of subway service. A tornado touched down in Pennsylvania resulting in extensive property damage. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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Train tracks are flooded in the Bronx following a night of heavy wind and rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ida on Sept.2, 2021 in New York City. Multiple fatalities have been reported in the region after the storm passed through, causing massive flooding and a widespread disruption of subway service.
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A person stands in a flooded street the morning after the remnants of Hurricane Ida drenched the New York City and New Jersey area on Sept. 2, 2021 in Hoboken, New Jersey.
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A person walks on a flooded street as the Schuylkill River exceeds its bank in the East Falls section of Philadelphia, Sept. 2, 2021, in the aftermath of downpours and high winds from the remnants of Hurricane Ida that hit the area.
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A motorist drives a car through a flooded expressway in Brooklyn, New York early on Sept. 2, 2021, as flash flooding and record-breaking rainfall brought by the remnants of Storm Ida swept through the area.
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A worker unblocks a drain on a street affected by floodwater in Brooklyn, New York, Sept. 2, 2021, as flash flooding and record-breaking rainfall brought by the remnants of Storm Ida swept through the area.
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Floodwater surrounds vehicles following heavy rain on an expressway in Brooklyn, New York, early on September 2, 2021, as flash flooding and record-breaking rainfall brought by the remnants of Storm Ida swept through the area.
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Vehicles are surrounded by water behind an apartment building on Main Street in Kingston, MA on Sept. 2, 2021. Flooding concerns due to the heavy rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Ida shifted away from morning commute problems to communities along rivers in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where water levels were continuing to rise on Thursday. The overnight rainfall reached nearly 6 inches in some Massachusetts communities.
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Highway 440 flooded in Jersey City of New Jersey, United States on September 2, 2021 as hundreds of cars stuck in water as Hurricane Ida left behind flash floods east coast. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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A delivery worker is seen riding through flood waters and heavy rainfall from teh remnants of Hurricane Ida during a flood on Intervale Avenue on September 1, 2021 in the Bronx. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
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As what was once Hurricane Ida drenched the Tri-State area, a person makes their way down a flooded street in the Bronx. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
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Cars sit sunken in high water on Highway 440 after a flash flood in Bayonne City of New Jersey, United States on September 1, 2021. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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A man is seen crossing a flooded street with with water up to his shin in Hoboken, New Jersea on September 1, 2021. (Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
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A car seen attempting to drive slowly down a flooded street in New Jersey but became stuck. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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A car seen attempting to drive slowly down a flooded street in New Jersey but became stuck. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Cars are seen stuck in very high waters after the remnants of Hurricane Ida dumped massive amounts of rain on New Jersey. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Highway 440 flooded in Jersey City of New Jersey, United States on September 2, 2021 as hundreds of cars stuck in water as Hurricane Ida left behind flash floods east coast. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Highway 440 flooded in Jersey City of New Jersey, United States on September 2, 2021 as hundreds of cars stuck in water as Hurricane Ida left behind flash floods east coast. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Ida blew ashore in Louisiana on Sunday tied as the fifth-strongest storm to ever hit the U.S. mainland, then moved north with rain that overwhelmed urban drainage systems.
A record 3 inches (7.5 centimeters) poured down in a single hour in New York City, where by Thursday afternoon, nearly 7 1/2 inches (19 centimeters) had fallen, according to the National Weather Service. Eleven people died when they were unable to escape rising water in their low-lying apartments.
On Saturday, the city opened service centers in each of the five boroughs to connect people with housing, food and mental health counseling. Seventy-seven people displaced by the storm were being housed in hotels, Office of Emergency Management spokeswoman Christina Farrell said.
In Connecticut, funeral arrangements were set for State Police Sgt. Brian Mohl, who was swept away with his vehicle while on duty early Thursday in Woodbury. A wake for Mohl is scheduled for Sept. 8 in Hartford, where the funeral will be held on Sept. 9.
Floodwaters and a falling tree also took lives in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, where at least 26 people perished, the most of any state. Most drowned after their vehicles were caught in flash floods.
A bizarre sight: two cars stacked upon one another after Hurricane Ida's remnants blasted New Jersey. Sarah Wallace reports.
Two doors down from the Coughlins on Saturday, a contractor hauled can after can of debris to a large industrial trash container in the driveway. Water trickled down the gutter on both sides of the street, fed by basement sump pumps trying to get floodwater out of homes.
The range of possessions wrecked by the storm and surrendered as trash was heart-breaking: a dining room candle; children’s toys including a sandbox; sodden rugs and carpeting; a patio heater; couch cushions, and a child’s art easel with a rudimentary painting still clipped to it.
“It happened so suddenly,” Christina Coughlin said. “ This was so unexpected. We definitely would have prepared more had we known it was going to be this bad.”
