NEW YORK (AP) — Heavy rain spawned extreme flooding in New York’s Hudson Valley that killed at least one person, swamped roadways and forced road closures on Sunday night, as much of the rest of the Northeast U.S. braced Monday for potentially punishing rains.

As the storm moved east, the National Weather Service extended flash flood warnings into Connecticut, including the cities of Stamford and Greenwich, before creeping into Massachusetts. Forecasters said some areas could get as much as 5 inches (12 centimeters) of rain.

In New York’s Hudson Valley, rescue teams found the body of a woman in her 30s who drowned after being swept away while trying to evacuate her home, Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus told WABC-TV. Officials were waiting for the medical examiner’s office to arrive, he said.

“There’s a major flash flood. Major washouts were all around where her house is,” Neuhaus said. “So I could definitely see where she was trying to get out to to safety, but did not make it, got swept away.”

The force of the flash flooding dislodged boulders, which rammed the woman’s house and damaged part of its wall, Neuhaus told The Associated Press. Two other people escaped.

“Her house was completely surrounded by water,” he said.

“She was trying to get through (the flooding) with her dog,” he added, “and she was overwhelmed by tidal-wave type waves.”

The extent of the destruction from the slow moving storm, which pounded the area with up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) of rain, won’t be known until after sunrise, when residents and officials can begin surveying the damage. But officials said the storm had already wrought tens of millions of dollars in damage.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul confirmed to WCBS radio that several people were missing and one home was washed away.

The rains have hit some parts of New York harder than others, but officials said communities to the east of the state should brace for torrential rains and possible flash flooding.

Officials urged residents in the line of the storm to stay off the roads.

“The amount of water is extraordinary and it’s still a very dangerous situation,” Hochul said.

“We’ll get through this,” she said, but added “it’s going to be a rough night.”

The governor declared a state of emergency Sunday for Orange County, about 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of New York City. She later extended the state of emergency to Ontario County in western New York, southeast of Rochester.

“We are in close communication with local officials and state agencies are participating in search and rescue efforts,” she said.

The state deployed five swift-water rescue teams and a high-axle vehicle to help with rescues in flooded areas.

Some video posted on social media showed the extent of flooding, with streams of brown-colored torrents rushing right next to homes, and roadways washed away by fast-moving cascading flows.

West Point, home to the U.S. Military Academy, was severely flooded. Officials worry some historic buildings might have water damage.

The National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings across parts of southeastern New York, describing it as “life threatening,” as well as warnings in northeastern New Jersey.

By Monday, “a considerable flood threat with a high risk of excessive rainfall” was expected across much of New England, NWS said in a tweet. Intense rain may be especially strong in Vermont, where Gov. Phil Scott declared a state of emergency Sunday, and northeastern New York.

Showers and thunderstorms in New York City could lead to flash flooding, the National Weather Service New York tweeted.

The city’s emergency notification system tweeted that the heavy rain could cause “life-threatening flooding to basements” and instructed residents Sunday to “prepare now to move to higher ground if needed.”

State Route 9W was flooded, and the Palisades Interstate Parkway became so drenched that parts of it were closed, the New York State Police said in a statement. The police asked the public to avoid the parkway.

___

Golden reported from Seattle.

The post Extreme flooding overwhelms New York roadways and kills 1 person appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — A museum that tells the history of the Clotilda — the last ship known to transport Africans to the American South for enslavement — opened Saturday, exactly 163 years after the vessel arrived in Alabama’s Mobile Bay.

Ceremonies dedicating the $1.3 million Africatown Heritage House and “Clotilda: The Exhibition” took place Friday and Saturday in Mobile. The exhibit tells about the ship, its survivors and how they founded Africatown community in Mobile after they were freed from five years of slavery following the Civil War.

The Clotilda departed Alabama in 1860, more than 50 years after Congress outlawed the importation of additional enslaved people, on a clandestine trip funded by Timothy Meaher, whose descendants still own millions of dollars worth of land around Mobile.

The Clotilda illegally transported 110 captive people from what is now the west African nation of Benin to Alabama. The captain, William Foster, transferred women, men and children off the Clotilda once it arrived in Mobile and set fire to the ship to hide evidence of the journey. Most of Clotilda didn’t burn, and much of the ship is still in the Mobile River, which empties into Mobile Bay.

Remnants of the Clotilda were discovered in 2019, and Meaher’s descendants released a statement last year calling his actions 160 years ago “evil and unforgivable.”

The museum includes a brief history of the transatlantic slave trade and highlights the survivors of the 45-day journey from Africa, AL.com reported. It tells the story of its most famous passenger, Oluale Kossola, better known as Cudjoe Lewis. His interviews in the 1920s provided information about the Clotilda and its passengers to historians and scholars.

Other ship survivors are highlighted, including Matlida McCrear, who died in 1940 in Selma, Alabama, and was the Clotilda’s last known survivor. McCrear was separated from her mother at a young age and tried to escape from a slaveholder when she was 3 years old. McCrear and her sister “fled into a swamp, hiding there for hours until dogs sniffed them out,” according to a display in the museum.

“I think those who visit will really learn a lot about this particular story,” said Jeremy Ellis, president of the Clotilda Descendants Association and a sixth-generation descendant of Pollee and Rose Allen, who were enslaved and on the Clotilda. “It tells the story of west African culture, what the 110 experienced at the Middle Passage and the first five years of slavery and what they overcame in 1865 in the founding of Africatown.”

The post New museum in Alabama tells history of last known slave ship to US and its survivors appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here