Heavy rain and flooding are breaking a heat wave that gripped New York City and much of the Northeast last week.
Flash flood warnings were issued Monday for parts of New York, Philadelphia and New Jersey as rounds of storms moved through the area.
On Sunday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani warned about heatstroke and shared locations of pools and cooling centers. By Monday, he was urging people to leave basement apartments immediately if they saw water rising in their homes.
Heavy rain stranded cars on flooded highways across northern New Jersey and caused part of the roof of a BJ’s Wholesale Club in Ocean Township to collapse. Video from the store showed the roof over the bakery cave in and a torrent of water rushing down, sending tables of baked goods and at least one shopper clutching a cart skidding away. Two people were briefly trapped but managed to escape, and no injuries were reported, according to the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office.
“Nothing too serious. They have us running from call to call,” said Capt. Leroy Marshall of the nearby Lakewood Police Department.
The rain and storms broke the heat dome that settled over much of the Northeast last week.
LaGuardia Airport in New York set a record high Thursday of 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius). Low temperatures in many places barely made it below 80 degrees F (26.7 C), preventing people from cooling off even at night.
Officials in New Jersey were investigating at least 29 deaths that were possibly heat-related. The people were found dead on the street or in homes without air conditioning. They ranged in ages from their 30s to their 80s, New Jersey Department of Health Commissioner Raynard Washington said.
Autopsies and other investigations will be needed before the deaths are officially blamed on the heat, Washington said.
Other states have not announced possible deaths from the heat.
Severe storms moved from Michigan to the East Coast as the heat wave broke over the weekend. About 450,000 people remained without power across the country, most from the storm damage, according to poweroutage.com.