"It was a little nervous," Donald Ryan, a storm victim, said. "The house was swaying and the water was actually rushing and things were hitting the side of the house, you know, and there was a big surge here. You can actually see the surge going out here. It's water subsiding and going down the old road down there, right to the bay."
The massive flooding made things difficult for firefighters who were called to the scene of a huge fire in one Queens neighborhood.
Local news station WABC reports the water was chest high and firefighters had to use boats to rescue people trapped in their homes.
More than 50 homes burned to the ground.
It's unclear what sparked the blaze.
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