The father of the woman killed in upstate’s “freak” flood described to The Post on Tuesday how he watched his daughter die trying to save her dog — adding the animal survived but is now deeply traumatized.
Edward Nugent said that when a chunk of the family’s yard collapsed into a tributary creek running behind the house in Fort Montgomery during the deadly rainfall Sunday evening, his 43-year-old daughter, Pamela Nugent, panicked and tried to escape the home.
He said his daughter — a New York University grad who worked for an engineering firm in New York City — “was in the house, she saw the yard collapse.
“She got really scared,” said the dad, who was across the street at the time trying to help her struggling fiance with their cars near the Hudson River.
“She tried to come out with the dog, and we screamed at her, ‘Stay in the house! Stay in the house!’ and she started screaming, ‘The house is gonna fall down!’
“So she was in here for a bit, hooked the dog up on a leash, tried put her head down, wouldn’t listen to us, tried to cross the street, soon as she hit the road, she was gone,” the stricken father said.
He said Pamela and the dog, a Newfoundland named Minnie, disappeared into the torrent that was crashing down and washing away the road.
Edward Nugent said his daughter died running out of their house with her dog, Minnie, trying to escape floodwaters. New York Post“She tried to grab the car. [The water] took her past the car, and just past this bush here on the right, and then the road dropped out, and she went down in there with the dog,” Nugent said.
After the floodwaters receded, Pamela’s body was discovered at the bottom of a ravine near the home — with her beloved dog alive near her.
Nugent said he chose not to see his daughter’s remains.
“The fire department and somebody else, they found her.” he said. “The county medical examiner was up there, he told me, ‘You don’t want to see her. You have your last memories of her, keep those.’ “
Pamela Nugent, here with fiancé Robert Silverman, died in Sunday’s vicious upstate flooding.
Minnie was miraculously discovered safe near Pamela’s body.
“The dog took the ride all the way down to the river. They found the dog with her,” Nugent said, adding that he spent “nine hours trying to get the mud caked into [the pooch] out” when she was brought home.
Although physically safe, the dog evidently remains shaken by the terrifying experience.
“I moved all her joints, legs, and I don’t think she has any mobile issues,” Nugent said. “I think she’s just traumatized, you know, getting swept down the white water.”
Edward Nugent said the flood was a “freak” act of nature, the likes of which he’d never seen in his quiet riverside neighborhood. James Keivom
The road Pamela Nugent was swept down was gouged away by the raging floodwaters Sunday evening James KeivomImages from the neighborhood showed the Nugents’ yard almost completely eroded away into the creekbed below and the road leading down to the river gutted into a deep, ragged trench of asphalt debris, dirt and stones.
“It wasn’t so much the rain right here, it was up in the mountains, everything just drained down here,” Nugent explained. “It was hard to process, it was happening so quick, nobody had a clue what was happening.”
Since his daughter’s death, Nugent said, he’s been trying to maintain a strong face for friends and family.
“But when I’m by myself, I wail,” he said. “She was a really bright young woman. Professional. She was one of the kindest people you ever meet.”
Pam Nugent worked for an engineering firm in New York City after graduating from NYU, according to NBC.
Swaths of the Hudson Valley, up through Massachusetts and into Vermont are still reeling from the weekend’s rainstorms, which dropped up to 9 inches in some areas and continued into the week.
The Nugent house is situated above a creek. The entire yard to one side fell away as it was eroded into the creekbed. New York Post
Edward Nugent is helping to care for Minnie, his daughter’s traumatized Newfoundland. James KeivomVermont was so heavily hit Monday night that New York Emergency Management coordinated with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deploy 46 members of the New York Police Department and Fire Department to assist in ongoing cleanup and recovery operations.
“We stand with Vermont during this challenging time, offering our unwavering support and expertise in the face of severe floods,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement Tuesday.
“This deployment reflects New York City’s commitment to supporting our neighbors in times of crisis, and I am confident our team will bring a wealth of experience in disaster recovery and emergency response to the Green Mountain State as they cope with this disaster.”
More rain is forecast to fall on Vermont come Thursday.
