NEW YORK CITY – The New York City transit system is a major talking point when it comes to weather impacts on the city, specifically the subway stations – begging the question: Who, or what, is to blame for Monday’s intense flooding underground?
Severe subway flooding
The backstory:
On Monday night, several stations flooded after rain drenched parts of the city, causing severe delays and even closures. Video posted on social media appeared to show water flooding down into a Manhattan subway station, submerging the platform while passengers inside a train watched.
Another photo appeared to show passengers standing on a train’s seats to avoid the water beginning to soak the floor. Some of the water actually leaked into the train cars.
The MTA reported that service was disrupted on the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 trains. There were also delays on the A, B, C and D trains; parts of the M and the F subway lines were also rerouted.
‘We’re seeing them every year’
What they’re saying:
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said on Tuesday morning that a lot of the flooding the transit system faced was due to the city’s sewer system backing up.
“The stormwater management system of the city of New York, they’re our partners, but you know, that’s not our infrastructure, so to speak, but it goes through the subway stations, and they don’t have the capacity to deal with rainfall in excess of an inch and a half to an inch and three quarters in an hour,” Lieber said.
“We’re not seeing these events every five years, right? We’re seeing them every year.”
— Nick Bassill
City officials say they’ve cleared the sewers surrounding around 45 subway stations that have experienced severe flooding in the past.
Meanwhile, the storm is initiating another conversation in regards to flooding and the role climate change is playing, along with the city’s sewer systems’ limitations and flash flood events. As experts say, the city’s system was designed to handle them only once every five years.
“We’re not seeing these events every five years, right?” Nick Bassill, director of the NYS Weather Risk Communication Center. “We’re seeing them every year, if not several times per year and going back to really blockbuster events like the remnants of Ida, you know, that wasn’t just a one subway station here, another spot there. That was an entire citywide event.”
By the numbers:
According to city officials, it could cost about $30 billion and take somewhere between 15–20 years to properly address the stormwater resilience of the underground infrastructure.
Severe WeatherNYC SubwayNew York City