New York – A torrential downpour sent water surging through New York’s subway system and highway tunnels and across airport runways Wednesday, leaving thousands of commuters stranded and one big question: How could 3 inches of rain bring the nation’s largest mass-transit system to a halt? The storm, which also spawned a tornado, hit just before dawn.
By rush hour, the subway system was virtually paralyzed when pumping stations became overwhelmed. Bedlam resulted from too much rain, too fast; some suburban commuters spent a half-day just getting to work.
“One big rain and it all falls apart,” said Ruby Russel, 64, as she sat waiting on a train in Brooklyn. She had been trying to get to Manhattan for three hours.
The failure renewed a debate about whether the network of pumps, sewers and drains that protects the city’s subways from flooding needs an overhaul. The washout was the third time in seven months that the subways were disrupted by rain.
Metropolitan Transit Authority engineers were asked to report back to Gov. Eliot Spitzer within 30 days with suggestions about how to deal with the chronic flooding.
The National Weather Service said a tropical air mass dumped an extraordinary amount of rain in a short period of time. The worst was recorded between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m., with 2.5 inches falling on Central Park and almost 3.5 inches on Kennedy International Airport.
The subway problems come as weather experts predict New York is due for a major hurricane. A storm with 130 mph winds and a 30-foot storm surge could cause the Hudson and East rivers to overflow – and bring with it more significant flooding than a severe rainstorm.
Keeping the subway system dry is a challenge, even in regular weather. On an average day, hundreds of MTA pumps remove 13 million gallons of water from the system, which includes several tunnels and stations below sea level. Much of that water is groundwater that enters from sources such as streams.
The National Weather Service said a tornado touched down in Brooklyn, where winds downed trees, tore off rooftops and wrapped signs around posts. At least 40 homes were damaged.
