OXFORD, Conn. (AP) — Heavy rains flooded parts of Connecticut and Long Island in upstate New York, washing out roads, trapping people in cars and a restaurant and sweeping two people into a river. Two women died in the storms, which also caused problems in New Jersey late Sunday and early Monday, authorities said.

In some parts of western Connecticut, up to 10 inches of rain fell, falling so quickly that it caught drivers by surprise and quickly turned roads into raging rivers.

The bodies of two women who went missing during the storm were recovered Monday in Oxford, about 35 miles southwest of Hartford, officials said. Both lived in Oxford.

The storm system that hit Connecticut on Sunday and then moved on to Long Island was different from Hurricane Ernesto, which was over the open Atlantic on Monday but still brought strong waves, dangerous surf and rip currents along the U.S. East Coast.

William Syrett, professor of meteorology and atmospheric sciences at Pennsylvania State University, called the Connecticut-New York system a “practice storm.”

“It’s as if every thunderstorm is a car on a railway embankment, and so they keep going over the same spot,” he said.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said more than 100 people were evacuated by search and rescue teams on Sunday evening. In Southbury, a passerby filmed Lucas Barber wading through chest-deep water to help a man whose car was mostly submerged in a flash flood.

“I pulled over, grabbed a rope from the trunk of my car for emergencies, threw my phone and wallet on the seat and ran out,” Barber told the New York Times.

Barber pulled the trapped driver, Patrick Jennings, along with his golden retriever, from the floating car.

“He pulled me all the way out of the water, the dog swam over and the rest is history,” Jennings told the Times.

The two deceased women were trapped in different cars, Oxford Fire Chief Scott Pelletier said at a press conference with other Connecticut state officials.

Firefighters were trying to rescue the first woman from her car and carry her to safety when she was swept away by a flood of water, he said. The second woman got out of her car and made it to a street sign where she tried to hold on, but “the rushing water was too much” and swept her away, too, he said.

A dramatic rescue operation took place at an Oxford restaurant when the Brookside Inn was engulfed by a raging flood. 18 people trapped inside the building were rescued by firefighters who stretched a ladder across the floodwaters to reach them.

The water “literally enveloped the entire restaurant,” Jeremy Rodorigo, a firefighter from the neighboring city of Beacon Falls, said Monday. “And we were concerned about the structural integrity of the restaurant because there were literally cars floating by and large objects crashing into the building.”

Firefighters also rescued a woman and a small dog from an apartment next to the restaurant, Rodorigo said.

Ed Romaine, the executive director of Suffolk County on Long Island, said hundreds of homes were affected by flooding and mudslides had blew off the roofs of cars in some areas.

“We’re dealing with reports of damage from all over the county,” said Romaine, who along with other officials attended a news conference near a pond in Stony Brook where a dam broke, destroying a section of a major road and flooding homes.

Brookhaven City Councilman Dan Panico called the flooding “an environmental and economic disaster.”

“Millions of gallons of water, turtles, fish, everything is downstream, along with the personal belongings of many flooded homes,” Panico said, adding that repairing Harbor Road alone would cost $10 million.

Dozens of flights were canceled at Newark Liberty, LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports.

The storms brought 2 to 4 inches of rain to most of northern New Jersey and caused light to moderate flooding on roads such as the Garden State Parkway and other major highways, stranding some motorists. No deaths, injuries or property damage were reported in New Jersey.

Amtrak suspended service between Philadelphia and New York’s Penn Station for several hours Sunday evening because the tracks in New Jersey were flooded. Service resumed Monday morning, but several trains between Washington and New York were canceled due to unspecified “equipment shortages.”

Flooding also caused service disruptions on a section of the Metro-North Railroad in Connecticut. On Monday morning, some New Jersey Transit rail lines experienced delays of up to 30 minutes due to weather-related signaling problems.

Syrett, the Pennsylvania State University professor, spoke of “perfect conditions” for the storms, thanks to moisture in the air and a slow-moving weather system.

What was unusual was the amount of rain that fell over several hours, Syrett said, not the thunderstorms.

This story has been corrected to show that the Oxford Fire Chief’s last name is spelled Pelletier. Earlier versions incorrectly spelled it Pellitier.

Matthews reported from New York. Associated Press journalists Suman Naishadham in Washington, Julie Walker in New York and Bruce Shipkowski in New Jersey contributed.

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