By Peter Yankowski
New Haven Register, Conn.
WILTON, Conn. — Police said two of their officers and a mother-son duo of good Samaritans helped shuttle CT Transit bus passengers to a train station during Sunday’s storm, after the bus became stranded amid the flooding.
The bus was stranded across Seeley Road while it was “attempting to turn around,” Wilton police said in a Facebook post.
The department said the bus had hit a roadblock after it came to a flooded section of the road near the railroad crossing. The bus was “further blocked by the malfunctioning crossing gates which were stuck in the down position,” police said.
The bus’ approximately 30 passengers had to get off the vehicle and into the water, police said.
“Two officers, along with the help of a mother-son duo who reside on Seeley Rd , shuttled all of the passengers and the bus driver to the Cannondale Train Station where they were picked up by a secondary bus,” police wrote.
Sunday’s weather event saw a foot or more of rain fall over southwestern Connecticut after a train of thunderstorms developed over the area. The torrential rain caused flash flooding as far west as the greater Danbury area and east into New Haven County and parts of Litchfield County.
In Oxford, two women were killed after authorities said they were swept away by floodwaters on Sunday. Several people were trapped in cars, and firefighters in Oxford also rescued more than a dozen people trapped in a restaurant surrounded by raging water.
The Wilton Police Department said it wanted to “extend our gratitude to all of our residents,” including the mother and son who helped ferry the passengers, who they said “rose to the occasion and helped our officers and their fellow humans during this unprecedented event.”
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