2 women killed after car swept away in New Jersey flash flood
PLAINFIELD, New Jersey (WABC) -- Two people died when severe flooding overwhelmed roadways in Plainfield, New Jersey on Monday night.
The two women were in their car on the road when it was swept into the Cedar Brook during the height of the storm.
The Cedar Brook was built to catch all of the city's flood water and it is where the water builds up and drains.
Witnesses say the water whipped the car to the side of the road before flinging them in another direction.
A witness said he could hear one of the women scream, "I don't want to die."
One man told Eyewitness News that a good Samaritan broke the victims' car window, but was unable to pull them out before they were pulled into the brook.
Firefighters were unable to get to the victims Monday night as the storm was still raging. The assumption is that the women were trapped in their vehicle and drowned.
"There's a general human nature to think 'I can beat water. I know I can't beat a tornado, shouldn't touch a down power line, but my vehicle can make it through water or I can stay in my house,' and people pay with their lives over it," New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said.
The names of the two victims were not immediately released Tuesday.
Damage was still visible throughout Plainfield after the storm with roads buckled, pieces of sidewalks missing, and debris from floodwater caught in fences chest high.
"We're not unique, but we're in one of these sort of high humidity, high temperature, high storm intensity patterns right now," Murphy told reporters after touring storm damage in Berkeley Heights. "Everybody needs to stay alert."
Plainfield's mayor says his city is in for a very long recovery.
"We're dealing with basements that have been flooded up to the ceiling," said Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp. "We're dealing with people who have lost everything in their basements. We're dealing with infrastructure that we have to address."
This is the second time in 11 days extreme weather has claimed lives in Plainfield. On July 3, the weather knocked down a tree onto a car, killing two people inside.
In North Plainfield, residents didn't think a storm of this magnitude would happen again so soon after Ida in 2021.
"Two times in four years. It's like, all right, I'm over it," said homeowner Robert Aldred.
Aldred was at work Monday night while his wife Amanda was home with their children, watching as three shipping containers came flying by.
The rising water was one thing, but these were huge projectiles that nearly smashed into their home.
"And so that's when it was like, OK, I've got about 15 minutes and then I have to call evac," Amanda Aldred said. "But then I guess the water was so powerful that it moved the container down the road."
The containers landed in another yard. Neighbors told Eyewitness News they were being used as storage units for the North Plainfield Middle School up the road, for items like athletic and musical equipment used by the school's teams and band.
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