© NY Daily NewsA record-setting rainstorm flooded parts of Long Island, NY. August 13th, 2014
Multiple local government agencies on Long Island declared states of emergency Wednesday after a storm dumped nearly an entire summer's worth of rain, causing major flooding in some spots that stranded motorists and snarled the morning commute.
From Tuesday evening until Wednesday morning, Islip got more than 13 inches of rain, more than the normal total for June, July and August of 11.75 inches, said Joe Pollina of the National Weather Service. More than 5 inches of it fell in just a one-hour period, from 5 to 6 a.m. Wednesday, Pollina said.
Holbrook got nearly 11 inches.
A state of emergency was declared in Suffolk County, where county Executive Steve Bellone called the weather Wednesday morning a "storm of historic proportions. It was unprecedented and unpredicted - the size, the extent, the scale," Bellone said at a news conference Wednesday, also remarking that "this could be a 500-year storm we just witnessed."
Islip Town Supervisor Tom Croci said the storm brought "a historic amount of rain in a short amount of time." The Town of Brookhaven within in Suffolk County also declared a state of emergency. Officials warned that the ground was saturated and could cause sinkholes, collapsing cesspools, and the uprooting of trees. As 1010 WINS' Gary Baumgarten reported, some Suffolk County homes were still sitting on lakefront property on Wednesday night, as water was having trouble receding even with the help of municipal pumps.
"Had about 12 inches of water in the basement and 4 or 5 inches in the car" one West Islip resident said. While the storms had long since moved on by Wednesday night, standing water prompted officers to stand guard, and more problems were expected for the Thursday morning commute.
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