Floods from 'training thunderstorms' lead to dramatic rescues and 2 deaths in Connecticut

OXFORD, Conn. (AP) — Torrential rains turned streets into raging rivers in parts of Connecticut and New York's Long Island, trapping people in cars and a restaurant, covering vehicles in mud, and sweeping two women to their deaths, authorities said.

Dramatic rescues unfolded as a foot (30 centimeters) of rain fell on some parts of western Connecticut late Sunday and early Monday, coming down so fast that it caught drivers unaware. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, who declared a state of emergency, said more than 100 people were evacuated by search and rescue teams Sunday evening.

The bodies of two women who had been in separate cars were recovered Monday in Oxford, a town of 13,000 about 35 miles (56 kilometers) southwest of Hartford, officials said. State police identified them Monday afternoon as Ethelyn Joiner, 65, and Audrey Rostkowski, 71, both of Oxford.

Firefighters were trying to get one of the women to safety when the flooded Little River swept her away, Oxford Fire Chief Scott Pelletier said at a news conference with other Connecticut officials. The second woman got out of her car and tried to cling to a sign, but “the racing water was too much” and swept her away, too, he said.

“This is a tragic and devastating day for Oxford,” the town’s first selectman, George Temple, said.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal added, “Who would have thought the Little River would turn into a gushing torrent of destruction, which is what happened.”

Numerous roads were closed in the area, many because of washed-out bridges, including parts of routes 34 and 67. As of Monday afternoon, 27 state roads were closed but no interstates were affected, said Garrett Eucalitto, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Transportation. The Waterbury branch of the commuter Metro-North Railroad remained closed due to flooding and damage from a mudslide, officials said.

“It's going to be a long recovery,” Eucalitto said. “We're still inspecting all the state roadways today.”

In nearby Southbury, Lucas Barber used wilderness first responder techniques he learned as a backpacker and rock climber to wade through chest-high water to save Patrick Jennings, who has a prosthetic leg, and Jennings' dog from a car outside the Southbury Plaza mall.

Barber, 30, said he drove to higher ground and grabbed rope he keeps in his car for emergencies. Jennings’ car, he said, looked like it was “turning in the tide and seemed to be sinking.”

Barber said he first tried to throw his rope to the car, but then waded and swam to the vehicle once he realized Jennings had a prosthetic leg. He saw Jennings’ golden retriever, Stanley, in the back.

"Your dog is coming with us, but also I need to get you out right now,'" Barber said he told Jennings.

Jennings took off his prosthesis and Barber wrapped his rope around the man’s waist and chest. Barber tried tying the rope around the dog’s collar, but it came undone. Once he got Jennings to safety, he went back for Stanley. Halfway back, Barber said, the dog got excited to see Jennings and swam the rest of the way to his owner.

Barber said he went back a third time to fetch Jennings’ prosthetic leg, which was bobbing next to his car.

In Oxford, rushing waters surrounded the Brookside Inn, trapping 18 people. Firefighters stretched a long ladder like a bridge across the floodwaters to reach them as cars and other large debris carried by the torrent smashed into the building, said Jeremy Rodorigo, a firefighter from neighboring Beacon Falls. One by one, people crawled across the ladder to safety.

The firefighters also rescued a woman and a small dog from an apartment next door, Rodorigo said.

In Southbury, a mudslide destroyed several structures at a poultry farm and killed more than 100 chickens, the owner said on social media.

The storm system that hit Connecticut and then moved on to Long Island was separate from Hurricane Ernesto, which on Monday was over the open Atlantic Ocean but still expected to cause powerful swells, dangerous surf and rip currents along the U.S. East Coast.

William Syrett, a professor of meteorology and atmospheric science at Penn State University, referred to the Connecticut-New York system as “training thunderstorms.”

“It’s like each thunderstorm is a car on a train track, and so they just keep going over the same place,” he said. He cited “perfect conditions” for the storms, thanks to the amount of moisture in the air and a slow weather system.

The unusual part was the amount of rain that fell over several hours, Syrett said, not the thunderstorms themselves.

Jennifer Santos, 17, said Sunday had seemed like a normal day at her parents' newly opened restaurant in Oxford, La Terraza Mexican Grill. Then the river began to swell, flooding the area around the building and eventually destroying the driveway.

“The water rose really quickly, to the point that it started getting up to knee level,” she said. “One of our customers almost got dragged off. Thank God she’s safe."

“I was kind of just shocked,” she said. “I didn’t really think it would happen, not as quickly as I had thought.”

Ed Romaine, the executive of Long Island's Suffolk County, said that hundreds of homes were affected by flooding and that mudslides covered the roofs of cars in some areas. He joined other officials at a news conference near a pond in Stony Brook where a dam breached and destroyed a section of a road and flooded homes.

Town of Brookhaven Supervisor Dan Panico called the flooding “an environmental and economic disaster.”

“Millions of gallons of water, turtles, fish, everything is downstream along with the personal belongings of many of the houses that were flooded,” Panico said.

The storms canceled more than 450 flights at Newark Liberty, LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports, officials said.

The storms dropped about 2 to 4 inches of rain on most of northern New Jersey, causing minor to moderate flooding on roads including the Garden State Parkway and other major highways that left some motorists stranded. No deaths, injuries or property damage were reported in New Jersey. Amtrak halted service between Philadelphia and New York’s Penn Station for several hours Sunday evening because of flooding on the tracks.

This story has been corrected to show the last name of the Oxford fire chief is spelled Pelletier. Earlier versions misspelled it as Pellitier.

Sisak reported from Philadelphia and Matthews from New York. Associated Press journalists Suman Naishadham in Washington, Julie Walker in New York and Bruce Shipkowski in New Jersey contributed.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

The driveway washed away and the basement flooded of Terraza Mexican Grill, owned by Isabel Perez, Javier Santos, in Oxford, Conn., when The Little River overflowed during heavy rains. (AP Photo/Dave Collins)

Isabel Perez and Javier Santos, owners of La Terraza Mexican Grill in Oxford, Conn., stand by their restaurant, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, where the driveway washed away and the basement flooded when The Little River overflowed. (AP Photo/Dave Collins)

A bridge washed out on Seth Den Road in Oxford, Conn. after torrential rains turned streets into raging rivers in parts of Connecticut and New York's Long Island, trapping people in cars and a restaurant, covering vehicles in mud, and sweeping two women to their deaths, authorities said, Monday, Aug 19, 2024. (AP Photo Dave Collins)

A bridge washed out on Seth Den Road in Oxford, Conn. after torrential rains turned streets into raging rivers in parts of Connecticut and New York's Long Island, trapping people in cars and a restaurant, covering vehicles in mud, and sweeping two women to their deaths, authorities said, Monday, Aug 19, 2024. (AP Photo Dave Collins)

This photo provided by the Central Park Precinct of the New York City Police Department, Aug. 18, 2024, shows the flooded 86th Street transverse road through New York's Central Park. (New York City Police Department via AP)

Storm damage on the grounds of The Waterview reception hall in Monroe, Conn., is shown Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP)

Vehicles pass through water on Newtown Rd. in Danbury, Conn., Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (H John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media)

Skip Kearns, with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, looks over damage on Georges Hill Rd., in Southbury, Conn., Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. ( Jim Michaud/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP)

Damage from flood waters at Berkshire Hills condominiums in Danbury, Conn., Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (H John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media)

Damage from flood waters is shown on Cottage Street in Monroe, Conn., Monday, Aug. 19, 2024. (Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media)

This photo provided by Beacon Hose Co. No. 1, a fire station in Beacon Falls, Connecticut, shows members of Beacon Hose rescuing a dog from the Brookside Inn in Oxford, Conn., Sunday, Aug. 18, 2024. (Beacon Hose Co via AP)8

This photo provided by Beacon Hose Co. No. 1, a fire station in Beacon Falls, Connecticut, shows members of Beacon Hose Co. rescuing people from the Brookside Inn in Oxford, Conn., Sunday, Aug. 18, 2024. (Beacon Hose Co via AP)

This photo provided by Beacon Hose Co. No. 1, a fire station in Beacon Falls, Connecticut, shows members of Beacon Hose Co. rescuing people from the Brookside Inn in Oxford, Conn., Sunday, Aug. 18, 2024. (Beacon Hose Co via AP)

This photo provided by Beacon Hose Co. No. 1, a fire station in Beacon Falls, Connecticut, shows members of Beacon Hose Co. rescuing people from the Brookside Inn in Oxford, Conn., Sunday, Aug. 18, 2024. (Beacon Hose Co via AP)

This photo provided by Beacon Hose Co. No. 1, a fire station in Beacon Falls, Connecticut, shows members of Beacon Hose Co. rescuing people from the Brookside Inn in Oxford, Conn., Sunday, Aug. 18, 2024. (Beacon Hose Co via AP)

This photo provided by Beacon Hose Co. No. 1, a fire station in Beacon Falls, Connecticut, shows members of Beacon Hose Co. rescuing people from the Brookside Inn in Oxford, Conn., Sunday, Aug. 18, 2024. (Beacon Hose Co via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are rising closer to their record levels Friday as they finish out their fourth winning week in the last five.

The S&P 500 was 0.3% higher in early trading and just 1% below its all-time high set in July. It's roared to claw back almost all its losses from last week, which was its worst in nearly 18 months.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 161 points, or 0.4%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.

Technology stocks have been the market’s main drivers this week, particularly Nvidia and other big technology stocks that struggled earlier this summer on concerns their prices had shot too high in the frenzy around artificial intelligence.

Technology giant Oracle helped drive Friday’s gains after giving long-term financial forecasts that analysts said topped their expectations. The software company climbed 6.1% to cap a strong week that began with a better-than-expected profit report for the latest quarter. Oracle is on pace for a nearly 21% gain this week, which would be its best in more than two decades.

Stocks were also getting support from the bond market, where Treasury yields were easing ahead of next week’s meeting of the Federal Reserve. The consensus expectation is that the Fed will deliver the first cut to interest rates in more than four years.

Inflation has slowed from its peak two summers ago, which is encouraging the Federal Reserve to turn more focus to the slowing job market and economy. It looks set to lower the federal funds rate, which has been sitting at a two-decade high for more than a year.

Lower rates can help relieve pressure on the economy by making it easier to borrow money, but they can also give inflation more fuel. Reports earlier this week on inflation showed some underlying upward pressure may remain, which initially pushed many traders to ratchet back their expectations for the Fed’s move next week.

On Friday, though, traders were seeing nearly a coin flip’s chance that the Fed could deliver a large cut of half of a percentage point, instead of the more traditional quarter of a point, according to data from CME Group. The federal funds rate is currently sitting in range of 5.25% to 5.50%.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 3.65% from 3.68% late Thursday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, fell to 3.57% from 3.65%.

On Wall Street, home-furnishings company RH jumped 20.9% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. The company said demand has been gaining momentum each month “despite operating in the most challenging housing market in three decades.”

They helped offset a 1.4% drop for Boeing, as aircraft assembly workers walked off the job early Friday. Union members voted overwhelmingly to go on strike and reject the troubled aerospace giant’s tentative contract that would have increased wages by 25% over four years.

Adobe fell 9.3%, even though the company also reported better profit for the latest quarter than expected. Analysts said investors were more focused on its financial forecasts for the current quarter, where some trends looked to be falling short of expectations.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were higher in Europe after finishing mixed in Asia.

AP Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.

FILE - American flags hang on the front of the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 11, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

People stand in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person stands in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

People walk in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)