The Associated Press
ROSCOE, New York — Searchers recovered the body of one person killed after flash floods surged through the edge of New York’s Catskill Mountains and were looking Thursday for up to six people missing.
Scores of troopers, rangers National Guard members and firefighters combed for a second day through acres (hectares) of washed-away homes, uprooted trees and mud-covered roads in rural Delaware County.
Searchers found one body at about 4 p.m. Wednesday. Trooper Nelson Torres said police were withholding the person’s name until family is notified.
Torres said searchers were looking for “several” more people, declining to be more specific because the number of missing has fluctuated since Wednesday morning. Dennis Michalski of the State Emergency Management Office said searchers were looking for as many as six people.
The woodsy area 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of New York City was deluged with up to eight 8 inches (20 centimeters) of rain in two hours Tuesday night. Survivors described a wall of water smashing through the rural hamlets along a local highway.
Storms that raked across the state Tuesday left thousands without power and led to the death of a man who was riding a recreational vehicle on a wooded trail when the top half of a tree crashed down on him.