New Yorkers were inundated by heavy rain and flash flooding early Thursday as Storm Ida wreaked havoc on the northeast United States, forcing flight cancellations and state of emergency declarations.

Ida slammed into the southern state of Louisiana over the weekend, bringing severe flooding and tornadoes as it blazed a trail of destruction north.

New York governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency as the remnants of the storm caused massive flooding in the country's financial and cultural capital, leaving the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens badly hit.

"We're enduring an historic weather event tonight with record-breaking rain across the city, brutal flooding and dangerous conditions on our roads," Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a tweet as he declared a state of emergency in the city.

Hundreds of flights have been cancelled at nearby Newark, LaGuardia and JFK airports and flooding has closed major roads across multiple boroughs including Manhattan, The Bronx and Queens.

Streets were transformed into rivers while the city's subway stations were also flooded, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority reported service would be effectively shut down.

As footage showed cars submerged on streets across the city, authorities urged residents not drive on flooded roads.

"You do not know how deep the water is and it is too dangerous," the New York branch of the National Weather Service (NWS) said in a tweet. "Turn Around Don't Drown."

The city earlier issued a rare flash flood emergency warning urging residents to move to higher ground.

"Significant and life-threatening flash flooding is likely from the Mid-Atlantic into southern New England," the NWS said in a bulletin, adding that three to eight inches of rain could drench the region through Thursday.

State governor Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency in neighboring New Jersey, where CNN reported at least one person was killed by the flooding in the city of Passaic, bringing the death toll from Ida to eight.

In Annapolis, 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the US capital, a tornado ripped up trees and toppled electricity poles.

- Lingering tornado threat -

The NWS warned the threat of tornadoes would linger, with tornado watches in effect for parts of southern Connecticut, northern New Jersey, and southern New York.

"This is extremely dangerous and potentially deadly flash flooding ongoing in Somerset County, as well as others in the area," the NWS account for the Philadelphia metropolitan area tweeted late Wednesday, along with a video of a car trapped in churning water.

Ida is expected to continue steaming north and bring heavy rainfall on Thursday to New England, which was also hit by a rare tropical storm in late August.

US President Joe Biden is due to travel Friday to Louisiana, where Ida destroyed buildings and left more than a million homes without power.

Hurricanes are common in the southern United States, but scientists have warned of a rise in storm activity as the ocean surface warms due to climate change, posing an increasing threat to the world's coastal communities.

Hurricane Ida could become costliest weather disaster: UN
Geneva (AFP) Sept 1, 2021 - Hurricane Ida, which slammed into the US Gulf Coast at the weekend, could become the costliest weather disaster on record, the UN said Wednesday, hailing though that prevention measures had dramatically limited casualties.

Louisiana and Mississippi are still taking stock of the disaster inflicted by the powerful Category 4 storm that hit exactly 16 years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall and devastated the area.

Ida is known to have killed four people, although the death toll is expected to rise, and knocked out power for more than a million properties across Louisiana.

"There is a chance that the economic cost will be higher then Katrina," Petteri Taalas, who heads the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO), told reporters in Geneva.

He pointed as an illustration to the "major damage to the electric system in Louisiana."

Until now, Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people and destroyed large parts of New Orleans, had been considered by far the costliest weather-related disaster.

A fresh WMO report that examined mortality and economic losses from weather, climate and water extremes between 1970 and 2019, found that Katrina had raked in nearly $164 billion in economic losses.

Currently, hurricanes Harvey and Maria, which both hit in 2017, are considered the second and third-costliest weather-related disasters, carrying price tags of nearly $97 billion and over $69 billion respectively.

Taalas said it would likely take a month or more before a full cost estimate for the losses caused by Ida could be made.

But he hailed that improved early warning and flood protection systems as well as evacuation procedures appeared to have saved numerous lives.

"The good news when it comes to Ida is that the casualties as compared to Katrina, they were much lower," Taalas said.

Mami Mizutori, who heads the UN office for disaster risk reduction, agreed.

She told reporters that the differences between the impacts of the two storms showed the importance of investing in prevention.

"The economic loss indeed will be quite big, but the good news is that ... the mortality has been very, very low, and this is because the city of New Orleans and Louisiana ... invested in prevention."

What had made the biggest difference since Katrina, she said, was the $14.5 billion invested in building flood walls and levees as part of a new "hurricane and storm damage risk-reduction system."

"They did not wait for another century to do this. They did it very quickly."

Related Links
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New Orleans under curfew as US South tallies Hurricane Ida damage
New Orleans (AFP) Sept 1, 2021
Louisiana and Mississippi took stock Tuesday of the disaster inflicted by powerful Hurricane Ida, as receding floodwaters began to reveal the full extent of the damage along the US Gulf Coast and the death toll rose to four. New Orleans was under a curfew Tuesday evening, nearly two days after Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast as a Category 4 storm, exactly 16 years after devastating Hurricane Katrina - which killed more than 1,800 people - made landfall. Four deaths have been confirmed as ... read more