New York under water | The Press

Flooded roads, canceled commuter trains, chaos in the subway: torrential rains in the northeast of the United States suddenly paralyzed New York on Friday, straining its ability to withstand extreme weather.

By nightfall, more than 7 inches of rain had already fallen in parts of Brooklyn, including one location where 2 inches of rain fell in just an hour. The New York weather services had already measured “the wettest day” ever recorded at JFK International Airport since 1948, as they announced on X at 3 p.m.

And the precipitation was not over.

“If you are at home, stay home, if you are at work or school, stay safe for now. Part of the metro is flooded and it is extremely difficult to move around the city,” warned Democratic Mayor Eric Adams.

Images published by the media or shared on social networks showed vehicles traveling with difficulty on submerged roads, or even completely immobilized with water up to their windows, with traders trying as best they could to clear the water from their shops and metro stations flooded.

The water has already risen to the first floor of the Brooklyn building where Ahmed Abdou, a 50-year-old taxi driver, lives.

“All these storms happen every year at the same time. We should better anticipate them,” explains this New Yorker of Egyptian origin, describing the situation in the subway as “catastrophic”.

“The sad reality is that our climate is changing faster than our infrastructure can respond,” said New York City Environmental Protection Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala.

Metro lines closed

In the subway, necessary for the daily travel of millions of New Yorkers, several lines in the Brooklyn borough were closed and traffic was limited throughout this gigantic and aging underground network, one of the largest in the world. world with more than 30 lines and some 420 stations.

Getting it back on track is “priority number one,” state Gov. Kathy Hochul said, as criticism poured in from parents wondering how their child would get home from school and why the establishments remained open on Friday.

“This morning’s events blatantly showed that the City and State of New York must improve their communication with New Yorkers when extreme weather events occur,” criticized Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

At Grand Central Station, in the heart of Manhattan, Sue Evangelista, a 63-year-old retiree, had been waiting for five hours with her husband for a train to return to Connecticut, but the three commuter train lines were still at a standstill. in the middle of the afternoon, leaving thousands of travelers stranded.

“The moment they say the trains are coming, it’s going to be a mad rush, because soon people will start getting off work and there will be even more people,” she explained, while many travelers were sitting on the ground.

Local authorities declared a state of emergency for the megacity of 8.5 million inhabitants, as well as Long Island to the east and the Hudson Valley, regions regularly affected by flooding.

Danger of basements

The situation is being taken seriously in New York, where the hurricane Ida caused the death of 13 people in September 2021 (and caused several dozen other victims in the region), most of them trapped in the basements of houses converted into apartments in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, in a city struggling with a severe housing crisis.

“If you live in these neighborhoods, in a basement apartment or in a flood zone, make sure you are prepared to climb to higher floors for shelter,” the commissioner warned. to the city’s emergency management, Zach Iscol.

A portion of the expressway that runs along the East River in Manhattan, the “FDR Drive”, crucial to relieving traffic congestion, was also closed while vehicles were stopped there.

La Guardia Airport announced for its part that all access to Terminal A was “currently closed”, which partially disrupted air traffic, while JFK Airport also announced disruptions.

With the Associated Press