Quantcast

MTA braces for more overnight storms as Elsa batters uptown subway stations

DSCF2421
NYCT interim president Sarah Feinberg updates reporters at Union Square about the flooding from Tropical Storm Elsa.
Photo by Kevin Duggan

Multiple uptown subway stations were closed for hours after flash flooding from Tropical Storm Elsa battered northern Manhattan and the Bronx Thursday evening, according to MTA’s subway chief.

“The 1 line and the A line took a beating,” New York City Transit Interim President Sarah Feinberg said at an emergency press conference at Union Square on July 8. “We’ve got folks who are literally manually pumping out that area now. The water is receding. It’s going in the right direction, but it’s taking a long time.”

A train service between Inwood-207 St and 181 St stations was suspended for four hours following the burst of a downpour which covered the city in almost 3 inches of rain.

MTA crews had to rush to upper Manhattan and the Bronx, areas that don’t usually experience such overflows, according to the transit chief, and workers struggled to get to the stations right away. 

“We had crews prepositioned in the stations where we expect flooding where we normally get flooding, and we obviously saw issues there,” the transit chief said. “Our crews had trouble getting to those places as quickly as they would want in some of those cases, because they were trapped in traffic and because of closed roads.”

Dramatic footage posted to social media showed stations filling with water, including one memorable scene at the 1 line’s 157th Street station where riders braved waist-deep murky pools donning trash bags to get to their trains. The street above that station was also flooded up to people’s knees, video on Twitter shows.

Other on-the-scene footage shows water jetting out of a manhole at 34th Street Penn Station and waterfalls pouring down from the ceiling at 42nd Street Bryant Park.

“Obviously I’ve seen the same videos you have. None of our customers should have to go through that,” Feinberg said.

She added that if riders encounter a situation like that they should wait for the flooding to subside or check if another station entrance is safer.

“People feel an urgency to get home, I get it, or to get where they’re going, to get to work,” she said. “Sometimes a moment that can really be dangerous for a customer can be much much safer 10-15 minutes later when the drains have had a minute to catch up the water recedes.”

Transit officials are preparing for another batch of heavy weather as storm Elsa is supposed to give the city another blow around 2:30 am, but Feinberg noted that it might not overwhelm the system as much because the rain is forecast to be more spread out.

“Knock on wood, with Elsa we’re supposed to have rain over a much longer period of time not like we did tonight and so obviously we’re much more able to keep up and so we’re hopeful that we’ll have many fewer issues,” the official said. 

She advised people to avoid traveling Friday if they can, but if they have to use public transit, New Yorkers should check the weather and the MYmta app for service updates.