Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

A Trinida­di­an moth­er and her son lost their lives in his­toric floods that swept through New York City overnight from Wednes­day to yes­ter­day.

They were at­tempt­ing to sal­vage their be­long­ings at a Queens, New York apart­ment where they lived when tragedy struck.

Pre­mat­ti “Tara” Ram­skiret, 43, and her son Nicholas Ram­skiret, 22, both died when flood­wa­ters burst through the con­crete wall of their 183rd Street, Hol­lis, Queens base­ment apart­ment.

Pre­mat­ti’s hus­band Damesh­war and her oth­er son Dy­lan were not in the apart­ment at the time.

The duo is among at least 45 peo­ple killed dur­ing the dev­as­tat­ing floods across north­east­ern Unit­ed States, which me­te­o­rol­o­gists said dropped 35 bil­lion gal­lons of rain­fall in just five hours.

News re­ports said the fam­i­ly lived in the apart­ment for 15 years. Neigh­bours said they could do lit­tle to help them, as with­in sec­onds wa­ter rose as high as four feet.

A neigh­bour, Ma­hen Singh, told CBS New York, “I heard a loud scream...It was dev­as­tat­ing. I was right out there; I watched the whole thing...No­body could even help them. They were very help­less.”

A lo­cal rel­a­tive of Pre­mat­tie, whose fam­i­ly is from Cunu­pia, Trinidad, said they spoke to Pre­mat­ti on Wednes­day and she told them that there was a lot of rain be­cause of Hur­ri­cane Ida. She said they were told Pre­mat­ti and her son had gone back in­to the apart­ment to sal­vage somet things when the in­ci­dent hap­pened.

“She was leav­ing the apart­ment but went back for some­thing. All a neigh­bour heard was a scream and wa­ter start­ed to gush in with a force,” the rel­a­tive said.

The rel­a­tive said Pre­mat­ti and her long time sweet­heart Damesh­war mi­grat­ed to New York when their first son was just eight months old to make a bet­ter life.

The rel­a­tive said Pre­mat­ti was a home­mak­er and her son, Nicholas, was prepar­ing for col­lege.

A police officer stands guard as a man surveys the damage to the home where two Trinidadians died after their basement apartment flooded in Queens, New York, yesterday.

AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly yes­ter­day af­ter con­firm­ing they were T&T na­tion­als.

“We have con­fir­ma­tion that a fe­male na­tion­al and her adult son trag­i­cal­ly drowned in Queens NY dur­ing these ter­ri­ble floods. The T&T Con­sulate Gen­er­al has con­veyed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, and ex­tend­ed an of­fer to as­sist in any way pos­si­ble,” he said.

The Min­is­ter al­so said he was await­ing an up­date from the team on the num­ber of na­tion­als im­pact­ed.

“It ap­pears that the ma­jor­i­ty of per­sons af­fect­ed by the NY floods were those who sad­ly found them­selves trapped by the wa­ters in base­ment apart­ments,” he added.

Most of New York City’s deaths as of yes­ter­day were re­port­ed in Queens, while New Jer­sey re­port­ed the high­est num­ber of dam­age to prop­er­ty. The death toll con­tin­ues to rise, with of­fi­cials say­ing it could be days be­fore the count is over.

As of yes­ter­day, a two-year-old boy was the youngest fa­tal­i­ty. The tod­dler and a 48-year-old woman were found un­re­spon­sive in­side their home at Flush­ing, Queens.

Emer­gency re­spon­ders used rafts to res­cue over 400 peo­ple trapped in their homes and cars. Cars were swept away while sub­way lines were sub­merged in the rag­ing flood­wa­ters. Hun­dreds were al­so left with­out elec­tric­i­ty across the tri-state area.

Grace Mal­oney, a Trinida­di­an na­tion­al liv­ing in Brook­lyn, told Guardian Me­dia she was at her work­place at the Castle­ton Bus De­pot when around 10 o’clock Wednes­day, waist-high wa­ter be­gan gush­ing in­to their of­fice.

“I get so scared I didn’t even think to pray,” Mal­oney said.

The home where Trinidadian mother and son Prematti “Tara” Ramskiret, 43 and Nicholas Ramskiret, 22, died from floodwaters in their New York apartment, yesterday.

AP/ MARK LENNIHAN

“You look at the bus tyres float­ing and big iron dump­sters float­ing,” Mal­oney re­called.

She said she and her cowork­ers jumped on­to their desks to es­cape the ris­ing wa­ter. She said luck­i­ly the wa­ter did not rise fur­ther than the top of the desks. It was not un­til around 1 am yes­ter­day that she and her cowork­ers were able to get out of the bus de­pot.

Ac­cord­ing to Mal­oney, she is five feet five inch­es and the wa­ter lev­el by the time they were es­cort­ed out of the build­ing was still about waist high for her.

Mal­oney, who has been liv­ing in New York for over 30 years, said it was the most hor­rif­ic weath­er event she has ex­pe­ri­enced since liv­ing there. AL­hough she for­got to pray in the mo­ment of tragedy, Mal­oney said the flood has not shat­tered her spir­it but re­newed her faith.

“I am grate­ful to be alive,” she said.

The ex­treme weath­er was caused by the rem­nants of Trop­i­cal Storm Ida. US Pres­i­dent Joe Biden said the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment was ready to pro­vide “all the as­sis­tance that is need­ed”.

Floods broke records

The del­uge of rain on Wednes­day — more than half a foot fell in just a few hours — turned streets and sub­way plat­forms in­to rivers. Emer­gency re­spon­ders in boats res­cued peo­ple from the rooftops of cars. Hun­dreds of peo­ple were evac­u­at­ed from trains and sub­ways. A tor­na­do in south­ern New Jer­sey lev­elled a stretch of hous­es. Some rivers in New Jer­sey and Penn­syl­va­nia were still ris­ing.

The rain broke records set just 11 days be­fore by Trop­i­cal Storm Hen­ri, un­der­scor­ing warn­ings from cli­mate sci­en­tists of a new nor­mal on a warmed plan­et: Hot­ter air holds more wa­ter and al­lows storms to gath­er strength more quick­ly and grow ever larg­er.

New York City’s sub­way lines re­mained at least part­ly sus­pend­ed as of mid­day yes­ter­day, as was com­muter rail ser­vice across the re­gion. Air­ports were open but hun­dreds of flights had been can­celled.

The 3.15 inch­es of rain that fell in Cen­tral Park in one hour on Wednes­day eclipsed the record-break­ing one-hour rain­fall of 1.94 inch­es on Au­gust 21. The Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice, strug­gling to de­pict the lev­el of dan­ger, de­clared a flash flood emer­gency in New York City for the first time.

In Bergen Coun­ty, New Jer­sey’s most pop­u­lous coun­ty, Coun­ty Ex­ec­u­tive James Tedesco, a for­mer fire­fight­er, said on Thurs­day: “We have not com­plete dev­as­ta­tion but close to it. This is as bad as I’ve ever seen it.”