Victims of NYC storm were handymen who helped around their buildings

The two men who died in flooded basements as intense rain pounded New York City on Thursday were handymen in their respective buildings – familiar faces who could be called on to help out in a pinch, residents and neighbors said.

As the waters rose, a 39-year-old man rushed back into his cramped subterranean apartment in a building on Kingston Avenue in Flatbush, Brooklyn to try to save one of his beloved pit bulls. Neighbors said they only knew him as Aaron. Multiple outlets identified the victim as Aaron Akaberi.

On West 175th Street in Washington Heights, Juan Carlos Montoya Hernandez, 43, went down to the boiler room of an apartment building to fix the electricity when it sputtered out.

Neither Akaberi nor Hernandez survived. Neighbors at both buildings were trying to piece together