‘It’s all trashed everywhere’: Residents of New Jersey community assess the damage after Storm Ida
It has taken 24 hours for the floods around Manville to recede.
At first glance, a place like this doesn’t look too bad, but it’s deceptive.
The mud lining the roads is the only sign that, block after block, all of this community was metres under water.
Physically, financially, psychologically, this extreme weather is testing communities and families.
Outside one house, I met the Shahs – grandparents, their two adult sons and their grandson, a young boy called Moweed.
It was he who wanted to show us inside.
“It’s all trashed everywhere. You can see the sofas. Everything,” he said, showing me around their living room.
The family only moved here eight months ago. The house is gutted. The living area, which is raised a couple of metres from the ground was itself under more than a metre of water.
Moweed Shah showed Sky News around his flood-damaged house in Manville
“We couldn’t see that window yesterday,” Zeb Shah said, pointing to an upper floor window of his parents’ house.
“You go inside you see four feet of water inside. We are standing 15 feet down right now,” he said.
Mr Shah runs a limousine business in New York City. His cars are parked outside and all will have to be written off.
As you’d expect, the small town spirit here is strong.
We passed Jeffrey Leiton with a pickup truck full of bottled water.
“I feel we have a responsibility as a community and no one can be better than the other,” he said.
“You see another person being affected so I just realised that Walmart was closed so I stopped in Edison (a neighbouring town) and filled the car with water.”
Passing in her car, Danielle Ord said she is checking up on neighbours.
“Our family friend, the mother and her daughter, the house completely to the roof submerged. I mean, between all the explosions, I even felt my own house shake.”
Some houses in Manville were ruined by gas explosions due to severe flooding. Pic: AP
“Explosions?” I asked.
“Yeah there were a couple of house explosions,” she said.
Sure enough, around the corner we found two of a number of houses in the town which have been levelled. The floods caused electric and gas explosions. Thankfully everyone here had evacuated.
This small New Jersey community was right underneath Storm Ida as it swept northeast across America, dumping records rains as it went.
This state suffered the worst death toll, with at least 25 dead. At least 62 died across eight states as Ida pushed north and east this past week.
Ralph Macaro said he is devastated after seeing the storm damage
Macaro’s Iron Works is a fencing company that is now ruined
Up the road is Macaro’s Iron Works, family run for two generations. It’s a fencing company that’s now ruined.
“The whole business, everybody. We have got over 80 employees over here, you know. So just devastated,” owner Ralph Macaro said.
“Is anything salvageable?” I asked.
“No. Just memories. That’s it. That’s all you’re gonna save now.”
Inside, it’s obvious that they will have to start again. Mr Macaro’s father Giuseppe Macaro founded the business and we found him clutching awards won at a recent business trade show.
“We’ve built it once, we gonna do it again,” he said, emotional.
Back outside the Shah house, young Moweed wanted the final word.
“I feel very sad for my grandparents. I really wish I can buy them a new one but I don’t have any money.”
Vladimir Putin told Donald Trump he “will not back down” from Russia’s goals in Ukraine during a phone call today, the Kremlin has said.
The Russian president spoke to his US counterpart for almost an hour, and Mr Trump “again raised the issue of an early end to military action” in Ukraine, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
In response, Mr Putin said “Russia will not back down” from its aims there, which include “the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs,” Mr Ushakov said.
The phrase “root causes” is shorthand for Moscow’s argument that it was compelled to invade Ukraine in order to prevent the country from joining NATO.
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Trump and Putin’s latest call on Ukraine
Ukraine and its European allies say this is a pretext to justify what they call an imperial-style war, but Mr Trump has previously shown sympathy with Russia.
At the same time, Mr Putin told the US president that Russia is ready to continue negotiating, the aide said.
The Russian president said any prospective peace deal must see Ukraine give up its NATO bid and recognise his country’s territorial gains.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, seen with Mr Trump in June, is pushing for Ukraine to join NATO. Pic: Reuters
He also briefed Mr Trump on agreements made last month, which saw Russia and Ukraine exchange prisoners of war and dead soldiers.
Specific dates for the third round of peace talks in Istanbul were not discussed – nor was the US decision to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine.
Mr Putin and Mr Trump’s call came after the Pentagon confirmed some weapons due to be sent to Ukraine have been held as it reviews military stockpiles.
The paused shipments include air defence missiles and precision-guided artillery, two people familiar with the situation have said.
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The decision led to Ukraine calling in the acting US envoy to Kyiv on Wednesday to underline the importance of military aid from Washington.
Kyiv also cautioned that the move would weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against intensifying Russian airstrikes and battlefield advances.
Mr Putin and Mr Trump’s phone call was the sixth they have publicly disclosed since the US president returned to the White House in January.
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