Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a state of emergency late this afternoon regarding Winter Storm Nemo.

“As this winter storm unfolds, bringing heavy snow and high winds to parts of the state, I strongly urge all New Yorkers to exercise caution, avoid travel, and stay indoors,” Cuomo said.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned New Yorkers to stay off the streets today as Winter Storm Nemo arrives in the city.

Snow began this morning, which has since turned into heavy rain and will morph back into snow sometime between 3 and 7 p.m., he said.

The mayor advised New Yorkers to opt for a warm Friday night at home.

“Stay off the city streets,” he said.

He even had a few suggestions.

“Tonight, what’s a good idea?” he said. “Cook a meal, stay home, read a good book, watch a movie. Just take it easy.”

Bloomberg said he met with Sanitation Department officials this morning, checking equipment. Sanitation workers are on 12-hour shifts, he said, with about 1,700 snowplows and 450 salt spreaders.

“They had one plow that if we had 10 feet of snow, it would blast right through it,” he said, adding, “I don’t think we’re going to need that one.”

The FDNY also has dispatched 100 extra ambulances, he said.

“You can’t take nature too lightly,” Bloomberg said. “It’s certainly not going to be a Hurricane Sandy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get badly hurt or killed if you’re not careful.”

As for his plans? “I will be home tonight,” he confirmed, elaborating, “Will I cook or get something from the Greek diner down the corner? I haven’t thought about that yet.”

The NYPD asked New Yorkers today not to call 911 for downed trees, blocked driveways or other non-life threatening conditions, instructing instead to dial 311.

The major winter storm with dangerous winds is expected to barrel through the Northeast tonight, and could drop more than a foot of snow on the city.

The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning for New York City, Long Island, northeast New Jersey, southern Westchester County, and large parts of New England.

Original forecasts had indicated that the city could get approximately six to eight inches of snow, but officials now say 12 to 20 inches of snow is possible for the city, with wind gusts exceeding 60 mph, according to The Wall Street Journal. More than two feet of snow is likely for much of New England.

Coastal areas of the city could see storm surges of three to five feet.

More than 2200 flights have been canceled and Amtrak has suspended some service northbound service out of New York and southbound service out of Boston, The New York Times reports.

Snow is expected to fall heaviest tonight into tomorrow morning.

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Ambulances line up outside Bellevue Hospital during a planned evacuation October 31, 2012 in New York.
Credit: Getty Images

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The ASPCA took in about 300 pets in the days after the hurricane, many who had been found roaming evacuated neighborhoods. Others were given to the ASPCA while their owners tried to salvage their own homes and lives. 

More than two months later, the ASPCA and other volunteers are still trying to get pets to their owners.

“Many of the evacuees left in such a way they could not take their pets with them,” said ASPCA director of planning and field operations Joel Lopez. Some thought they would be back soon; others simply did not have a way to bring along furry friends, he said.

The ASPCA hoped to connect all pets by yesterday (Sunday Jan. 5) before beginning to shutter an emergency boarding facility opened just for Sandy pets in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

The group does not have a strict date for closing, Lopez said, but they will soon begin placing pups through adoption shelters around the northeast.

Out of the 280 pets rescued, from cats and dogs to ferrets and birds, about 140 were waiting to be claimed last week, ASPCA officials said.

Trying to identify owners
 
The ASPCA tried to track down owners with flyers and advertisements in newspapers,  on the radio and on their website.

Facebook is another way a separate group of volunteers is trying to place pets. The Hurricane Sandy Lost and Found Pets Facebook site posts photos of pets found during the storm. They also feature pets whose owners can no longer keep them and that now need foster or adoptive homes.

“It’s such a sad situation,” said Rosalie Carlson, who makes fliers for the pets on the site.

More than 500 pets have been featured on the page, she said, with about 174 reunited so far. Just Friday, they reunited a parakeet, she said.

One Dec. 31 post described a 7-month-old male cat “found almost drowned on Atlantic Ave” during the storm, adding, “He is super friendly and must belong to someone.”

(Photos via ASPCA)

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“It has evolved into a full-fledged blizzard around the Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas border area,” said Alex Sosnowski, meteorologist for Accuweather.com. “It’s a pretty nasty storm.”

The storm marks a major change from the mild December so far in most of the nation. Many parts of the country could see a White Christmas. More storms are expected in the middle of next week.

Winds as high as 66 miles per hour (106 km per hour) were blowing dust and sand in western Texas, causing a string of traffic accidents along Interstate 27 north of Lubbock on Wednesday afternoon. More than 20 cars were involved in accidents that killed one person and injured 17 others along a 5-mile (8-km) stretch of road.

Corporal John Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said the fatality involved a semi-trailer crashing with a sports utility vehicle, killing the person in the SUV.

The injuries to the other 17 people were minor to moderate, he said.

“You could hear them in the dirt” crashing, Gonzalez said. “But you couldn’t see them. You couldn’t see nothing out there. Couldn’t see the front hood of your vehicle.”

In western Nebraska, the State Patrol closed a 146-mile portion of Interstate 80 between Kearney and Ogallala Wednesday evening because blowing snow reduced visibility and caused treacherous driving conditions.

The patrol said extremely dangerous weather conditions were forecast through the overnight hours across a good portion of the state, and travel was not recommended.

WHITE CHRISTMAS?

In Colorado, Interstate 70 was closed east of Denver to the Kansas state line due to high winds blowing snow into drifts and reducing visibility, said Mindy Crane, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation.

Several other roads in eastern Colorado were closed because of the blizzard conditions, she said.

Crane said a stretch of Interstate 70 in the mountains near the ski resort of Vail was closed temporarily on Wednesday so crews could do work to prevent avalanches.

Blizzard warnings have been issued Wednesday in parts of Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, meteorologists said.

The heaviest snow is falling at a rate of up to an inch per hour in parts of Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado. The worst of the blizzard is expected to hit communities from Omaha, Nebraska, to Green Bay, Wisconsin, Wednesday night into late Thursday, according to Accuweather.com.

In Chicago, the storm is expected to begin as rain and later change to snow Thursday, Sosnowski said.

Heavy snow and high winds were expected anywhere from the central plains into the Midwest/Great Lakes regions through much of the day Thursday, the National Weather Service said. Hazardous travel conditions were expected through Thursday and into early Friday.

Moisture off the Gulf of Mexico is expected to cause rain in the lower Mississippi River Valley Thursday, pushing east into the southeastern states Friday.

In the West, a system along the Pacific coast will bring scattered snow and rain showers into the northwestern states, according to the weather service. Over a foot of snow is expected in the higher elevations of the Washington Cascades and upper Rockies.

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The unseasonably early winter storm dumped more than a foot of snow on parts of Connecticut and slapped the region with 50 mph winds, plunging another 300,000 homes and businesses back into darkness and creating a new commuting nightmare for a region whose transportation system was still under repairs.

The bitter cold, rain and powerful winds added to the misery of disaster victims whose homes were destroyed or power knocked out by the massive storm Sandy that smashed ashore on October 29 with epic flooding.

“God hates us!” the New York Post said in a front-page headline. Some 3 to 6 inches of snow fell on the city.

Sandy’s death toll in the United States and Canada reached 121 after New York authorities on Wednesday reported another death linked to the storm, in the hard-hit coastal neighborhood of the Rockaways, a barrier island facing the Atlantic Ocean.

Some 300,000 customers from the Carolinas to New York lost power, though roughly 250,000 were restored before morning. In all some 662,000 remained in the dark after the back-to-back hurricane and nor’easter.

New York distributed space heaters and blankets to residents without heat or power and opened shelters to those in need of a warm place to sleep.

EVACUATIONS AND DISRUPTIONS

New York and New Jersey evacuated the most vulnerable coastal areas ahead of the nor’easter storm.

New York City officials urged people whose homes have been flooded by Sandy to relocate to the homes of friends or family members or to go to city shelters.

Some were unwilling or unable to leave their homes. That included Christine Jones, a 73-year-old resident of coastal Far Rockaway in the borough of Queens who said she and many of her neighbors planned to stay in their cold, dark apartments.

“They’re scared they’re going to be robbed,” said Jones, whose evacuation options were limited since her 1999 Buick was flooded by Sandy’s storm surge. “The teen-age boys … they try to break in.

Commuter bus and train services had been disrupted by the storm, with the Long Island Rail Road briefly shutting down all operations to the city’s eastern suburbs on Wednesday night.

All of the region’s major airports experienced canceled flights and delays on Wednesday due to the storm, and gasoline remained in short supply, though four companies told the United States they intended to take advantage of a rare waiver allowing them to use foreign-flagged ships to transport oil products to the storm-hit region.

Across the region, people waited for a return of power and warmth.

Diane Reinhardt, a 64-year-old retired teacher, said she had traveled from her home in Brooklyn to the south shore of Long Island to check on her 93-year-old mother, whose home had been without power since Sandy hit more than a week ago.

“They’re just at wit’s end,” Reinhardt said of her mother and brother. “They feel like they’re never going to get power back and it’s never going to get warm again.”

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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg closed parks and beaches and temporarily halted outdoor construction ahead of the storm, which was pelting the Washington area with ice pellets on Wednesday and whipping up seas as high as 7.5 feet about 20 miles off New York’s JFK airport, AccuWeather reported.

Airlines canceled 770 flights into and out of the New York area, FlightAware.com said.

Thousands of people in the U.S. Northeast lost their homes and more than 621,000 homes and businesses remained without power due to Sandy, testing nerves ahead of the Nor’easter.

Forecasters said the nasty weather was headed for New York and New Jersey, which were struggling to recover after former hurricane Sandy killed at least 120 in the United States and Canada when it struck on October 29 as a rare hybrid storm.

After Sandy killed 40 people in New York City, Bloomberg ordered evacuations of low-lying, hard-hit areas such as the Rockaways section of Queens and the south shore of Staten Island. Residents of at least two coastal New Jersey towns were also told to leave.

The Nor’easter threatened inland areas with powerful winds that could blow down trees and limbs weakened from Sandy, the National Weather Service said while forecasting a wintry mix of rain and snow from northern Maryland to central New England.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it was working with state and local authorities and was “ready to deploy additional resources if needed to respond to the Nor’easter.”

Authorities hurried to clear tens of thousands of tons of debris from Sandy amid fears it could produce deadly projectiles.

“I’m really concerned these freak weather events are going to become a permanent feature in this new world of climate change,” said Corey Birtles, 37, an analyst who lost power in his Manhattan apartment for four days after Sandy. “These events do seem to be more severe and more regular in recent times.”

President Barack Obama won wide praise for the U.S. government’s response to Sandy, which may have helped him win re-election Tuesday in a close race against Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

Bloomberg endorsed Obama for a second term after Sandy struck, citing his record on climate change. Regardless of whether climate change was to blame for a rise in severe weather events, it should compel leaders to act on the issue, the mayor said.

Sandy struck one week before the U.S. elections, leading New Jersey to take the uncommon step of allowing storm-displaced voters to cast ballots by email or fax, while New Yorkers were able to vote at any polling place by presenting an affidavit.

Makeshift polling places were also set up, but some voters still faced chaotic scenes and long lines.

NEAR-FREEZING TEMPERATURES

On the devastated New Jersey shore, a summer tourist haven where Sandy’s storm surge swallowed whole neighborhoods and pushed entire homes across the street, the town of Brick issued a mandatory evacuation order for waterfront neighborhoods ahead of Wednesday’s storm. Middletown also ordered evacuations.

Bloomberg ordered the evacuation on Tuesday of more than 600 people from four healthcare centers in the ravaged Rockaways.

New York City’s evacuations were designed to coincide with high tides when the storm surge would be highest and were not as widespread as the mandatory evacuations around the city before Sandy.

With overnight temperatures dropping to near freezing, the city said it would deliver 1,500 space heaters on Wednesday to elderly residents in the Rockaways who have power, but no heat.

Many gas stations still lacked electricity or gasoline, and motorists endured long lines at the stations that were open. Fuel rationing was in force in New Jersey, where some residents hired school children to stand in line with gas cans.

Authorities were due to reopen the Holland Tunnel linking Manhattan to New Jersey under the Hudson River, which will help alleviate massive traffic jams and overwhelming crowds on public transport systems that have yet to fully recover from Sandy.

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“We just don’t need to send our first responders into the ocean to save someone who is being foolish,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg also said city officials would try to evacuate residents from some low-lying waterfront neighborhoods on Wednesday when the nor’easter is forecast to strike the region.

He emphasized Wednesday’s evacuations, designed to coincide with high tides when the storm surge would be highest, would not be as widespread as the mandatory evacuations of large parts of the city ordered before Sandy hit the city last week.

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Forecasters warned the late-season storm is expected to combine with a polar air mass near the United States next week, potentially producing a highly unusual and potent storm that could wreak havoc along the U.S. East Coast.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center early on Friday issued tropical storm warnings for much of the Florida coast and tropical storm watches up through much of North Carolina.

Late Thursday, Sandy weakened to a Category 1 storm as it tore though sparsely populated low-lying southeastern islands in the Bahamas, knocking out power and blowing off rooftops of some homes.

Sandy’s torrential rains and heavy winds were blamed for the deaths of 21 people. The Cuban government said on Thursday night that 11 people died when the storm barreled across the island, most killed by falling trees or in building collapses in Santiago de Cuba province and neighboring Guantanamo province.

Haiti’s civil protection office said nine people died even though the country did not suffer a direct hit from Sandy, and one person was killed by falling rocks in Jamaica when the storm struck there on Wednesday.

The Cuban deaths were an unusually high number for the communist island which prides itself on protecting its people from storms by ordering mass evacuations.

Winds and rains generated by Sandy were also being felt in south Florida.

Early Friday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Sandy was about 15 miles southeast of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas and packing maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour (130 km per hour).

Sandy is forecast to remain a Category 1 hurricane as it continues to move over the Bahamas on Friday, sending swirling rains and winds across several hundred miles.

In the Bahamas, government officials warned residents to stay indoors until the storm passed. There were no immediate reports of casualties or serious injuries.

On Long Island, in the southeast corner of the Bahamas island chain, Joel Friese, general manager of the Stella Maris Resort, said Sandy was fierce as it cut across the island on Thursday.

“It was way stronger than we expected,” he said by telephone. “There are lots of downed trees and partial to heavy roof damage on some of the buildings.”

The Bahamas Electricity Corporation, which supplies power to most of the Bahamas, said Sandy had caused power outages on several islands.

Sandy was expected to move past the Bahamas by Friday evening and head north off the U.S. coast.

Forecasters say Sandy is expected to be pulled in by another storm system moving from the west, making it come ashore in the northeastern United States late Monday or early Tuesday and unleashing heavy rains, storm surges and possibly near hurricane-force winds.

Weather trackers say the hardest-hit areas could span anywhere from the coastal Carolinas up to Maine, with New York City and the Boston area potentially in harm’s way.

“There are many questions surrounding this hurricane and its forecast, but I find it important to convey that Sandy’s impacts will be widespread, no matter the location of landfall,” Jeff Masters, a hurricane expert at private forecaster Weather Underground (www.wundergournd.com), wrote in a blog.

He said a landfall by Sandy along the Mid-Atlantic coast could trigger “a billion-dollar disaster.”

Amid final preparations for the crucial November 6 presidential election, the storm could hit an area of New England where Hurricane Irene caused severe damage last year.

Unlike Irene, which caused billions of dollars in damage as it battered the Northeast in August last year, Sandy is forecast to be a weaker storm but will be moving slower than Irene, likely bringing more rain and increasing its potential for damage, weather forecasters said.

At $4.3 billion in losses, Irene ranks as one of the 10 costliest hurricanes, adjusted for inflation and excluding federally insured damage, according to the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group.

Sandy is expected to hit the United States during a full moon, increasing the flood potential since tides will be at or near their highest.

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Isaac was expected to spare Tampa a direct hit and strike, with hurricane strength, farther north along the Gulf Coast this week.

But it has left Republicans – who canceled events on Monday in anticipation of the storm – with a new challenge to salvage the convention’s remaining three days: Help Romney make an aggressive, memorable argument to be president, while being careful to show sensitivity to those at risk from the storm.

It is a quandary Republicans also faced in 2008, when they chose to delay their convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. That year, Hurricane Gustav hit the Louisiana coast as the convention was set to nominate Arizona Senator John McCain as the Republican presidential nominee.

At the time, the party was still reeling from criticism of Republican President George W. Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005. New Orleans is now threatened by Isaac’s projected path.

Romney, who will face Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election, is eager to use the nationally televised political extravaganza in Tampa to define himself to American voters after a series of campaign setbacks.

But Romney could be robbed of some media attention – or worse, have images of convention festivities juxtaposed with searing split-screen television images of the storm’s onslaught if Isaac dominates the news this week.

Seeking to regain the initiative, convention organizers juggled the speaking schedule as Republican delegates converged on Tampa, where the party will formally nominate Romney and his vice presidential running mate, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan.

The main speakers whose Monday appearances had to be scrapped were given slots on other nights, including House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Senator Rand Paul, son of Romney’s former presidential rival Ron Paul.

Mindful of the potential for bad “optics” if Isaac hits the Gulf Coast at the height of the convention, Russ Schriefer, the Romney campaign’s top convention planner, left open the possibility of more scheduling changes or even extending the gathering into Friday.

TELLING ROMNEY’S STORY

“We all know that a weather event is there,” he told reporters on a conference call Sunday afternoon. “We’re obviously monitoring what is going on. … Concern has to be with the people who are in the path of the storm.”

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that despite competition from the storm coverage, he expected independent voters in particular to tune in to hear Romney’s speech Thursday night and Ryan’s the previous night.

“I think we’ll still get a fair amount of attention,” McDonnell said, “and the message will be good.”

Part of Republican officials’ aim is to present Romney’s biography – his years as a private equity executive, Massachusetts governor and leader of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics – in a flattering way that contrasts with the waves of attacks on Romney by the president and his allies.

“We’re going to tell the Mitt Romney story. (And) we’re still going to prosecute the president on what he promised, what he delivered, and why we think we need to save this country and put Mitt Romney in the White House,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told CNN on Sunday.

The Republican convention, just like the Democrats’ similar gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina, early next month, is typically a celebratory event bringing together thousands of party activists from across the United States for a week of speeches, partying and strategizing.

For Romney, the importance of the convention cannot be overstated. Running even with Obama or slightly behind him in most opinion polls, Romney needs a bounce in the polls from the convention, particularly in the 10 or so politically divided “swing states,” like Florida, likely to decide the election.

Romney enters convention week having made a self-inflicted error by telling a crowd in Michigan that “no one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate,” a joke that rekindled a storyline pushed by far-right conservatives over whether Obama was actually born in the United States.

Romney tried to get the focus on what he considers the paramount issue in the campaign, the weak U.S. economy, telling Fox News he and Ryan would offer “big and bold answers.”

“America needs that kind of help at a time when so many people are out of work or underemployed or having a hard time making ends meet,” he said in remarks broadcast on Sunday.

Convention organizers were working intensely to ensure that Isaac doesn’t distract from Romney’s mission. The storm lashed south Florida with winds and heavy rain on Sunday after battering the Caribbean.

Fueled by warm Gulf waters, Isaac was expected to strengthen to a Category 2 hurricane and hit the Gulf Coast somewhere between Florida and Louisiana at midweek, on or near the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in an advisory.

A hurricane watch was extended westward to include New Orleans. A storm becomes a hurricane when sustained winds reach at least 74 miles per hour. At least seven people were killed when Isaac moved across Haiti.

SAFETY FIRST

The Republican convention will bring 50,000 visitors to the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, home to well over 4 million people. Over the last few days, local authorities have said they could handle the crowds and the approaching storm.

Many attendees booked earlier flights to be in place before any bad weather. Hotels said they were ready to shift party schedules or move outdoor events indoors.

Party officials were working with Florida state officials and emergency management to ensure the safety of those attending the convention. Heavy winds and rain can stretch for hundreds of miles out from the center of a major storm.

A Lynyrd Skynyrd concert planned for Sunday night was canceled because of the likely severe weather. But several other pre-convention events were going ahead as planned, including a giant welcoming party at the Tropicana Field.

Democratic Vice President Joe Biden, who had planned to visit Florida during the convention but canceled his Tampa event because of the storm, has decided to also cancel his other planned events in Orlando and St. Augustine, Florida.

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Severe jellyfish stings and a lightning storm prompted her crew to pull her from the ocean about halfway through her swim, according to CNN.

She had been in the water for about 60 hours. Nyad’s face and lips were swollen, but she wasn’t seriously injured, according to her crew.

From the first night of her swim, she faced adversity. She was stung by jellyfish on her lips, forehead, hands and neck. Later, a storm caused her to veer of course.

Her previous attempts were also cut short by severe weather, jellyfish stings and an asthma attack.

Nyad had said she hoped her swim would inspire a mature generation to reach their goals.

“When I walk up on that shore in Florida, I want millions of those AARP sisters and brothers to look at me and say, ‘I’m going to go write that novel I thought it was too late to do. I’m going to go work in Africa on that farm that those people need help at. I’m going to adopt a child. It’s not too late, I can still live my dreams,’ ” she had said, according to CNN.

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The Port Authority tweeted the incredible image of the bolt touching down on the still-under-construction building.

According to the Port Authority’s tweet, it happened during Friday’s thunderstorm.

One World Trade Center is slated to open in late 2013. In April, he reclaimed the title of NYC’s tallest skyscraper as it surpassed the Empire State Building in height. It is expected to be 1,776 feet high upon completion, making it the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

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The system, now over the central part of the gulf, already has prompted some major international oil companies to evacuate workers from offshore oil platforms.

The Miami-based hurricane center said the low pressure area was producing a large area of clouds, thunderstorms and gusty winds as it headed slowly to the northwest.

“This system has a high chance … 70 percent … of becoming a tropical cyclone during the next 48 hours … Interests along the entire northern Gulf of Mexico coast should monitor the progress of this disturbance,” the NHC said.

Some computer models showed the developing system, which would be called Lee if it became a tropical storm, could pass over the coasts of Texas and Louisiana. Lee will be the 12th named storm of the busy 2011 Atlantic hurricane season.

Texas is in the grip of a severe drought and rains from the developing weather system could bring some relief.

All eyes on Katia in Atlantic

Katia, a Category 1 Hurricane, has weakened to a tropical storm but some restrengthening was forecast during the next 48 hours, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its latest report on Thursday.

Thursday afternoon, Katia was located about 930 miles east of the northern Leeward Is­lands, packing maximum sustained winds of 70 miles per hour.

Forecasters say it is still too early to predict with certainty that the storm poses no threat to the Eastern Seaboard.

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The storm battered the East Coast with up to 15 inches of rain on Saturday and Sunday, setting river level records in 10 states, the Geological Survey said.

Wide swathes of New Jersey, upstate New York and Vermont experienced the worst flooding in decades, and while many disaster areas began to see waters recede other rivers had not yet crested, the USGS said.

Some 1.7 million homes and businesses were still without power after as many as 6.7 million had lost electricity.

With damage in the billions of dollars — Standard & Poor’s estimated the national total at $20 billion, though others have put the number at half that — homeowners were also battling insurance companies that exclude flood damage coverage.

Adding to the anxiety, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it had to put long-term projects on hold and focus on rushing immediate relief to battered states because it had only $800 million left in its disaster relief fund.

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Police said Jose Sierra went to a marina on City lsland on Sunday to check on his boat. There, he reportedly fell into the water and drowned.

That same day, a 46-year-old man was found dead in floodwaters in Bristol, Conn. Cops said Shane Seaver was canoeing on East Main Street and capsized.

In Rockland County, a man trying to save a child stranded on a flooded street was electrocuted by live wires. The child had been caught in the wires and is in serious condition at a burn unit. 

In Kearny, N.J., Ronald Dawkins died after he was trying to get to his office building. Officials said he was wading through a flooded road when he was swept into a drainage ditch. On Sunday night, the NYPD’s Aviation Unit was called to help five people whose raft had capsized in the Croton River in Westchester County. Peter Engel, 53, was thrown from the raft after it flipped in choppy waters. Rescuers pulled him onto a police boat, but he died at the hospital. 

Follow Alison Bowen on Twitter @AlisonatMetro.

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