Torrential rains poured over New York City yesterday, flooding streets, highways, and subway stations.
Areas of the city saw record rainfall of around 3 inches in an hour, and Central Park logged the most rain on any July 18 since recordkeeping began in 1869, NY1 reported. The Bronx was one of the most affected areas in the city, and the A train was not running for a few hours while MTA crew members worked to remove water from the train’s tracks, NBC4 News reported.
Commuters shared videos of what looked like a sunken city. There were cars driving through scarily high water along a highway:
Commuters yelled in fear as the bus plowed through floodwaters:
And water poured down over subway platforms as well, proving that no form of transportation was safe from the thunderstorm’s wrath.
The scenes echoed the flooding from Hurricane Ida last September, when commuters waded through waterlogged subway platforms. Some New Yorkers even had to abandon their cars. Ground level and basement apartments flooded, and residents lost personal belongings, and some even lost their lives.
America’s public transit systems are not prepared for the climate crisis. Commutes will become more than just frustrating—getting from point A to point B will more often be downright dangerous. Last September, flash floods in the Washington D.C. area inundated several metro stations and streets, with water flooding platforms and rushing down escalators.
A changing climate also means more heat waves, and that heat can affect public transportation as well. Just last month, triple-digit temperatures hit the Bay Area and derailed a train near San Francisco, according to an evaluation by the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART). The metal of tracks, baking in direct sunlight during the heatwave, warped, which then caused the train to derail.