Two workmen on Staten Island almost drowned Sunday when they took an elevator down into a basement flooded by heavy rains that inundated the New York area over the weekend, the New York Daily News reports.

Ed Tyler, 26, and Wendell Amaker were trying to move construction materials down to the lowest floor, unaware that water in the basement was making its way up.

"We thought we were dead," Tyler told the newspaper. "I literally thought I was going to die."

The men, in water up to their waists, managed to hold a cellphone through a ceiling hatch to get a strong enough signal to call 911.

By the time fire rescuers arrived, the water was up to their necks.

They finally scrambled to safety on a narrow ladder the firefighters pushed into the flooded elevator car.

"They were happy to see us," Capt. James Melvin said. "The water was going up, down, up some more."