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The torrent swept through his father, Dameshwar, through the house, as he shook hands with his wife, known as Tara. “I tried to hold on to my wife, and she was trying to hold on to me,” he said Thursday. He began to cry. “But the water pushed me away and I couldn’t feel his hand anymore.”
Ms Ramskriet and their 22-year-old son, who was named Nick, both drowned.
As the waters receded Thursday, family friend Sabrina Shivprasad stood outside the apartment, her wall punctured by the ridge of the waters, exposing what was once a family home. “When you saw the husband, you saw the wife,” Ms. Shivprasad said. “They were always together, they were like shadows to each other.”
In Elizabeth, NJ, two men and two women, aged 72 to 33, all residents of the Oaks at Westminster apartment complex, were killed as the Elizabeth River rose to their ground floor apartments, according to Chris Bollwage, the mayor. Their names had not yet been released.
Raw sewage had passed through the Oaks complex and on Thursday all 600 residents were being evacuated, guided in school buses en route to temporary shelters, Mr Bollwage said. The river had risen between eight and 10 feet above its banks, he said; the waterfront apartments lay with their doors open, mud swirled in the exposed living rooms. “It really is a real tragedy,” he said.
Some have been lost even after daring rescue attempts. A cascade of water burst through the sliding glass doors of a basement apartment Darlene Lee was visiting in the complex where she lived on Grand Central Parkway in Queens.
She got stuck between the steel door behind her and the door frame, said Patricia Fuentes, the condominium’s property manager, who heard her screams and grabbed two building staff in an attempt to release Ms. Lee.
While they were working, they tried to keep his head above water, which had risen up to his chin, said Andy Tapia, a maintenance worker. But by the time she was released she was unconscious, he said. “We have tried in vain,” Mr. Tapia said.
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