NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — Authorities have identified the two men who died in flooded basements in New York City on Thursday afternoon.
More than two inches of rain fell in such a short period that streets became flooded, and water overwhelmed some subway stations.
Aaron Akaberi, 39, went back into his basement apartment in Brooklyn to try to save a dog, police said. He had rescued one dog when he went back to save the other. He never made it out of the Kingston Avenue apartment.
FDNY divers pulled out his body, and he was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital. The second dog also died.
“He was just a very pure, simple person,” a friend of the victim said. “Didn’t really need much at all. He was a giver, he wasn’t a taker.”
Around the same time in Washington Heights, officers found Juan Carlos, 43, inside a flooded basement boiler room. He appeared to have been attempting to use a pump to flood out the basement when he was electrocuted, police said.
The effects of rainstorms have become progressively catastrophic for New York City residents.
The city has been messaging residents of basement apartments about the dangers of flash flooding in the years since the remnants of Hurricane Ida killed 13 people in New York City, including 11 who drowned in basement homes, in September 2021.
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