Torah scrolls rolled out to dry after New York synagogues flooded

This was the scene outside a synagogue in New York as congregants battled waist-deep floodwaters to rescue Torah scrolls.

Congregants were filmed wading into the basement shuls in the hope of retrieving the intricate handwritten scrolls.

Footage filmed from a nearby building showed the scrolls rolled out to length in the hope of drying them out, but it was clear they had sustained significant water damage.

The affected synagogues were Sambor Shul on Walton Street and Ohr Yisrael Elimelech at Wythe Avenue and Rutledge Street.

The two shuls in Willamsburg, Brooklyn were among those flooded during record rainfall across the eastern United States earlier in the week.