Update at 10:55 a.m. ET: The Associated Press quotes a neighbor of the victims, Tina Claybourne, as describing the mother as "a very good mom."

"She took care of her kids," Claybourne says. "She always was with her kids."

Update at 10:53 a.m. ET: The victims were identified as Lashanda Armstrong; her two sons, Pierce Armstrong, 5, and Lance Pierre, 2; and a daughter, Lainina, 11 months. The children drowned with their mother. Her 10-year-old son, Lashaun, escaped through a window and swam to shore, police say.

Update at 10:41 a.m. ET: Newburgh Mayor Nicholas Valentine says the city has had to cope with homicides and the deaths of children in the past, but this tragedy "is second to none."

Update at 10: 20 a.m. ET: A mother and her three children drowned after she drove their minivan into the Hudson River Tuesday night, but her 10-year-old son escaped and ran for help, Newburgh fire chief Michael Vattar says.

He says the boy was a passenger in the car when it went off a boat ramp and was "soaking wet" when he reached the nearby fire station looking for help. Vatter says he was accompanied by an unidentified woman who picked him up when he came out of the river.

Vatter says firefighters and search teams went immediately to the scene and eventually found the vehicle in 8 feet of murky water about 25 feet offshore. "It was not floating, it was under water," he said at a news conference this morning.

Newburgh Police Chief Michael Ferrara says that about 10 minutes before the boy entered the fire station, police had responded to a call about a domestic disturbance between the mother and the father of three of her children about six blocks from the river. Ferrara says a relative called police, but officers found the second-floor apartment empty when they arrived. Ferrara gave the mother's name as LaShanda Armstrong.

Update at 9:22 a.m. ET: The Hudson Valley Insider newspaper reports that City of Newburgh investigators have ruled the mother's death a suicide.

Update at 9:14 a.m. ET: New York City's WPIX reports that police had responded to a 911 call about a domestic disturbance at the victim's nearby home 10 minutes before the incident but found the place empty.

Newburgh authorities plan to give a news conference about the tragedy at around 10 a.m. ET.

Earlier post: A mother and three of her children drowned late Tuesday after she drove her minivan with everyone inside into the Hudson River, but not before first letting out a fourth child who ran for help, the Times Herald Record reports.

Police say the incident is apparently related to a domestic dispute at a home near the river in Newburgh, N.Y., about 60 miles north of New York City.

Divers found the unidentified woman, her two boys, ages 5 and 2, and an 11-month-old girl inside the vehicle in 10 feet of water about 25 feet from the shore. The family lived in a house about six blocks from the scene.

The tragedy occurred in a quiet section of the waterfront near a floating restaurant that was still closed for the winter, the Hudson Valley newspaper says.

Police say the woman drove the vehicle off a boat ramp after letting her 10-year-old son out. The boy ran to a nearby fire station to alert firefighters, the Associated Press reports.

"It's a horrible sight, all of them in the car," said City of Newburgh Police Chief Michael Ferrara.

Ferrara said the incident was apparently related to an incident earlier Tuesday when officers responded to a report of a domestic disturbance nearby only to find no one at home.