2 dead after heavy rain brings intense flooding to New York City
Rain shrouds the skyline of midtown Manhattan and the Empire State Building as a nor’easter storm moves into New York City on October 12, 2025, as seen from Jersey City, New Jersey. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Two people died in flooded basements on Thursday after heavy rain overwhelmed streets and subway stations in New York City.
The New York Police Department confirmed the two deaths to ABC News.
A 39-year-old man was found unconscious and unresponsive in a flooded basement in Brooklyn, according to New York ABC station WABC. The FDNY Scuba Team recovered his body from the basement before he was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said.
In a separate incident in Washington Heights in northern Manhattan, police said a 43-year-old man was found dead in a flooded boiler room, WABC reported.
Police are investigating both incidents.
More than 2 inches of rain fell in Brooklyn and Queens on Thursday, sparking flash flood warnings in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.
Video captured submerged cars, flooded streets and water gushing into some subway stations.
The rain also struck Philadelphia, where a third death was reported. A woman was killed on Thursday when a tree fell on her car, according to Philadelphia ABC station WPVI,.
More than 1,200 flights were canceled in the U.S. amid Thursday’s rainy weather, with New York City’s three airports hit the hardest.
Thursday’s rain and wind were not from Hurricane Melissa, which battered the Caribbean this week, but from an inland storm system moving throughout the Northeast. The storm was one of the factors keeping Melissa away from the U.S.
ABC News’ Victoria Arancio contributed to this report.
Allegheny Mountains (Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
(NICHOLAS COUNTY, W. Va.) — A missing miner trapped in a flooded West Virginia coal mine for nearly a week has been found dead, according to West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey.
“At approximately 6:00 a.m. this morning, water levels inside the Rolling Thunder Mine in Nicholas County had receded sufficiently for rescue crews to safely enter. The team began their search, examining every section as they advanced underground. At 7:37 a.m., one two-man team located the body of the missing miner, foreman Steve Lipscomb,” Morrisey said in a statement posted on X.
Alpha Metallurgical Resources, the company that owns the mine where Lipscomb was trapped, also confirmed Lipscomb’s death in a statement obtained by ABC News.
“During routine operations, a crew in the underground mine encountered a sudden and substantial inflow of water. Tragically, Steven Lipscomb, 42, of Elkview, W. Va., was unable to reach safety. He was last seen attempting to ensure his crew made it out safely,” the statement reads.
“Our hearts are broken,” Andy Eidson, the CEO of Alpha Metallurgical Resources, said in the statement. “Steve joined our company in 2006 and was a dedicated employee, respected leader and friend to many. His actions to ensure the safety of his crew members were heroic. On behalf of the entire organization, we extend our prayers and deepest sympathies to his wife, two children and all who knew and cared for him.”
Rescuers had been searching for Lipscomb, whose name was not immediately released, since Saturday, when he became trapped in the flooded mine. Crews pumped 6,000 gallons of water per minute from the mine, Morrisey said earlier this week.
“The big strategic goal right now is to drain as much of the water as possible, so that can give the mine rescue individuals the opportunity to go in and further their search,” Gov. Morrisey said at a Wednesday press conference, adding that it was being drained at a rate of approximately one inch of water per hour. “Separately there’s an effort to open up a hole to be able to do the drill to ultimately have a capsule that goes down.”
Morrisey said on Monday that dive teams were working to find pockets of air where the miner might be located while the mine was being drained.
“This has been an around-the-clock response since Saturday, and we’re going to continue to do everything imaginable to help,” said Morrisey. “We’re going to continue to push, because we want to make sure that we give the miner every opportunity to live.”
Lipscomb’s death at Rolling Thunder Mine is the second mining fatality in West Virginia this month, following the death of another miner at a different mine last Thursday, according to Morrisey.
“Our coal miners are among the hardest-working and most courageous people in our state. They represent the strength, humility, and resolve that define West Virginia. We owe these men and women an enduring debt of gratitude for the sacrifices they make every day to power our communities and our nation,” Morrisey posted on Facebook earlier this month.
Meredith Grundy, 38, was charged after he allegedly shot a 16-year-old girl at a Waffle House in Dunwoody, Georgia, according to the Dunwoody Police Department. Dunwoody Police Department
(DUNWOODY, Ga.) — An Uber driver has been charged after he allegedly shot a teenage girl at a Georgia Waffle House after she allegedly threatened to kill him, according to the Dunwoody Police Department.
Meredith Grundy, 38, was arrested on Sunday after he allegedly shot a 16-year-old girl, who remains in critical condition, officials said in a press release on Tuesday.
On Sunday at approximately 2:30 a.m., officers responded to a person being shot at a Waffle House in Dunwoody, Georgia.
Officials learned five juvenile females “ordered an Uber to take them home from the restaurant,” to which the driver — identified as Grundy — said he could “only transport four of the five because he did not have enough room and seatbelts in the car,” police said.
The group of girls then “argued with the driver about his refusal and who should cancel the trip with Uber,” police said.
The argument began to escalate, with one of the teens threatening “to kill the driver” before she “struck him in the face while he was inside the car,” police said.
Grundy then fired a gun and “struck the female who assaulted him,” police said.
When speaking to authorities, the other teens denied the assault and threat took place, officials said.
The victim, a 16-year-old female, was transported to a local hospital to receive treatment for her injuries. She remains in critical, but stable condition, officials confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday.
Grundy, who was taken to the DeKalb Jail, was charged with aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during a felony. The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to ABC News that Grundy was released on bond.
Police said the incident is still an “active investigation.”
It was not immediately clear whether Grundy has an attorney who can speak on his behalf or the date of his next court appearance.
Uber did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment. The company told Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB that Grundy’s access to Uber has been removed and they “stand ready to support law enforcement in their investigation.”
(NEW YORK) — New Jersey’s closely-watched gubernatorial race was jolted Thursday after the National Archives blamed a technician’s mistake for the release of Congresswoman and New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill’s unredacted military records.
Sherrill and some Democratic allies are calling for an investigation, saying the release was no mistake but an extension of President Donald Trump’s effort to weaponize the federal government against his political opponents.
Responding to a routine records request, the National Archives released Sherrill’s unredacted military records that show she had an unblemished career in the Navy, including a 1991 medal for saving the life of a fellow classmate. But the records contained unredacted information such as Sherrill’s Social Security number.
“Well, it’s really scary in these times, of course, to have all that private information in the public… But I think what this shows too, is that my opponent and the Trump administration will stop at nothing. They will completely weaponize the federal government to achieve what they want,” Sherrill said Friday on MSNBC.
Asked if she suspects anything “nefarious,” she said, “I more than suspect.”
ABC News has reached out to the White House about Sherrill’s claims she’s being targeted by the administration.
ABC News has not obtained or viewed the records.
CBS News, which first reported on the records release, said that it had been investigating if Sherrill was involved in a scandal in 1994 where more than 130 Midshipmen were implicated in a cheating scandal. Sherrill was not involved but, because she did not report her classmates, she was not permitted to walk at graduation.
Sherrill said this was a 30-year-old widely reported incident that does not reflect on her military service. Her campaign has not provided other documentation about the incident, but other records have shown that her graduation date and commission date were identical, indicating the Navy did not have an issue with her graduating.
Her Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, said her admission raises concerns.
“Today’s admission by Congresswoman Sherrill that she was implicated in, and punished for, her involvement in the largest cheating and honor code scandal in the history of the United States Navy is both stunning and deeply disturbing,” Ciatterelli’s campaign said in a statement on Thursday.
“For eight years, Mikie Sherrill has built her entire political brand around her time at the Naval Academy and in the Navy, all the while concealing her involvement in the scandal and her punishment. The people of New Jersey deserve complete and total transparency,” Ciatterelli’s campaign said.
CBS News reported that the request came from Ciattarelli ally Nicholas De Gregorio, who was tasked with doing so by political operative Chris Russell.
Russell, on Thursday, pointed to the National Archives’ apology and said the request error came in response to documents not related to the cheating scandal.
“FACT: The National Archives provided documents in response to a legitimate and perfectly legal FOIA request. Documents, btw, that had NOTHING to do with the cheating scandal,” Russell wrote on X on Thursday.
“The National Archives then apologized to the requestor and took full responsibility for their error. Now… it’s time for Rep. Sherrill to come clean and authorize release of all of her records.”
The National Archives, on its end, admitted in a letter, shared by the Sherrill campaign, it “should have provided only information that is releasable to the public under the FOIA. Unfortunately, however, in responding to the request, we released the comprehensive record, including personal information such as your social security number and date of birth … We have already reached out to the requester, Nicholas De Gregorio, and asked that he not further disseminate the information that was released to him in error.”
ABC News has reached out to the National Archives for comment on the record release.
The Sherrill campaign said it is considering legal action, and that counsel for Sherrill has already sent letters to the National Archives, Ciattarelli campaign, Russell, and De Gregorio.
“We are calling on Jack Ciattarelli and the Trump administration to immediately stop illegally distributing Mikie Sherrill’s military files, with protected personal information like her Social Security Number, and we will explore appropriate legal action,” campaign spokesperson Sean Higgins said in a statement on Thursday.
“To have a guy I’m running against who will stop at nothing to illegally obtain records, it’s beyond the pale,” Sherrill said at an event on Thursday.
The records request, according to CBS News, was done through a routine and legal procedure and recognized the request would redact personal information.
Ciatterelli, in a statement Friday, called for his Sherrill to share more documents from her time in the Naval Academy.
“The real issue at hand is exactly why Congresswoman Sherrill was barred from walking at her graduation? What specific honor concept violations was she punished for… The only way to determine any of these answers is through her authorizing full and immediate release of all academic, disciplinary, and investigatory records related to her time at the Academy and the scandal itself,” he wrote.
House Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on Thursday called for a criminal investigation.
“Mikie Sherrill is a patriot and a hero who has served this country, graduated from the naval academy, helicopter pilot, tours of duty in dangerous places overseas and the Middle East, came home, served as a federal prosecutor, is a supermom and a great public servant and a member of Congress,” Jeffries said. “It is outrageous that Donald Trump and his administration and political hacks connected to them continue to violate the law and they will be held accountable.”
