Woodside Toddler Among At Least 13 Dead In NYC After Flooding

WOODSIDE, QUEENS — At least 13 people across New York City were killed, including a toddler and his two family members in Woodside, when the remnants of Hurricane Ida brought historic flooding to the region Wednesday night, according to the NYPD and multiple sources.

Around 10:00 p.m., the NYPD said police responded to a call for flooding at a house located at 44-60 64 Street in Woodside — an area that saw major flooding, including one apartment building where water levels rose to nearly waist height, a video posted to Twitter shows.

After getting to the house, officers found a 48-year-old woman, a 50-year-old man, and a 2-year-old boy, unconscious and unresponsive, police said. The trio, who were reportedly family members trapped in a flooded basement unit, were pronounced dead at the house, according to the NYPD.

As of Thursday morning, the three people haven't been identified, pending family notification, the police said.

That same night, police found at least seven other Queens residents dead in their homes, after they couldn't escape their flooded apartments: Darlene Hsu, 48, in Forest Hills, Yue Lian Chen, 86, in Elmhurst, three people in Auburndale, and a mother and son in Jamaica, according to reports and the NYPD.

One other person in Queens died after a car accident on the Grand Central Parkway, city officials said Thursday.

Wednesday's deadly storm, which prompted the National Weather Service to issue its first-ever flash flood emergency for New York City, caused devastating flooding across Queens — the borough's latest incident of catastrophic flooding amid climate-change-induced natural disasters, which city officials warned will continue to disproportionately impact southeast Queens unless more infrastructure is invested in the area.

Critics, however, pushed back, at the news conference suggesting that local officials could have done more to alert New Yorkers about the storm and ensure their safety.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who stood by his administration's response, admitted that the city's weather predictions were "made a mockery of in a matter of minutes" and warned New Yorkers to assume the worst going forwards.

"From now on what I think we do is tell New Yorkers to expect the very, very worst. It may sound alarmist at times, but unfortunately, it's being proven by nature," he said.

Area flooding and a tornado watch in New York City occurred after Post-Tropical Cyclone Ida hit Louisiana on Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane.

The hurricane, which knocked out power to hundreds of thousands in Louisiana and beyond, is now linked to more than a dozen deaths, NBC reported.