Hellacious Commute

Heavy thunderstorms rolled through the NYC Metro area just before the heart of the morning rush hour, and the storms caused quite a lot of disruptions. Flooding occurred in all the usual spots in New Jersey including Route 17 and Newark, and low-lying areas in New York City. Mass transit was a mass mess. The center tube of the Lincoln Tunnel was shut because of flooding and major highways had closures as well. Subway service was disrupted as flooding along several lines caused traffic to come to a halt.

Most subway lines in the city experienced delays or diversions, and there was no Metro North rail service to Grand Central Station on some lines.

John F. Kennedy International Airport experienced delays of up to 90 minutes, and LaGuardia Airport had hourlong delays, said Alan Hicks, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Flooding on roads leading to LaGuardia affected traffic to the terminals.

Some commuters were understanding.

``It's nobody's fault. You see how hard the rain was coming down,'' said Mark Edwards, who was trying to get on a subway in Brooklyn, only to find that his line was flooded. ``Of course we're going to have problems this morning.''

In other words, this was one hellacious commute. However, I disagree with Mr. Edwards. It doesn't have to be that way all the time in the same spots.

Heavy thunderstorms happen regularly in this area during the summer. Yet, we get the same heavy flooding and disruptions each time. I can understand if trees take out power lines or that debris causes sewer systems to back up where one would not expect. I also expect air travel to be hit hard as you don't want to take off or land in severe weather. Indeed, early reports indicate that a tornado may have touched down in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. A definitive answer will come when investigators examine the scene as the damage could have been due to straight line winds or a microburst and not a tornado. Forecasters on Fox5NY and other stations had alerted Brooklyn and Queens residents of a tornado warning this morning, so the conditions were present for a severe storm.

However, we've repeatedly seen Route 17 flooded out in the same spots for decades (East Rutherford near the BJ's Warehouse for example). Flooding on the Grand Central Parkway occurs in the same spot year in and year out.

Flooding on the subways occurs fairly regularly as well.

All this is part of infrastructure upgrades that must be done in this region. Consider the possibilities if there is an approaching hurricane and the heavy rains preceding the storm make major roads leading away from the coast impassible? What happens then?

More care must be taken to upgrade the sewer systems in those areas where flooding occurs regularly. One should expect that we're going to see heavy downpours every spring and summer and the systems in place should be able to accomodate the rains. Yet, we repeatedly see flooding in the same spots, which causes closures, diversions, and traffic jams through significant portions of the region.

Note that many of the mass transit links were suspended or cancelled due to the weather. Some are finally coming back on line. Others are still out because of standing water. Hopefully, the situation will be resolved by the evening rush.

UPDATE:
The situation is far from resolved as subway lines remain shut down because of flooding.

But Jeff Warner, a meteorologist at Penn State University, said no tornados formed or touched down. He said 1.7 inches of rain fell in Central Park between 6 and 7 a.m., and recent hot, humid weather powered clusters of thunderstorms over Pennsylvania and lower New York State that moved through the metropolitan area.

Paul Fleuranges, a spokesman for New York City Transit, said: “We’re coming back slowly. We have to dry out we have to clean up and then we have to make sure the circuits and the signals are working before we resume service.”

For the latest service information, please see the Times’ City Room blog.

Alfonso Quiroz, a Consolidated Edison spokesman, said that about 4,000 customers throughout the city were without power — including 1,500 on Staten Island and 1,000 in the Bronx — largely because the storm knocked down power lines.

Amid the commuter havoc, M.T.A.’s website, mta.info, shut down. It was the second time in several weeks that the website was not able to function during a transit crisis. The last one was during a minor blackout on the east side of Manhattan several weeks ago.

The NYT City Blog is running updates on service disruptions. It's probably easier to say which lines are back to normal than to list the problems. Gothamist notes that the subway system pumps out 13 million gallons of water on a normal day. Today certainly wasn't a normal day with anywhere from 1-4 inches of rain falling, but there is no capacity to deal with these rains, which occur fairly regularly.

UPDATE:
I've done some digging around and there's a reason that there is so much flooding along one particular stretch of Route 17 - the area near East Rutherford - only about half of the flood control systems in place along that stretch are functioning at capacity.

It was only last year the extent of damage to the infrastructure designed to protect the Meadowlands District from severe flooding became known. After an extensive survey to accompany the Hackensack Meadowlands Floodplain Management Plan, NJMC officials announced only 56 percent of the 34 total flood control structures in the region were at functioning capacity. This past April during the Nor’easter that dumped several inches of rain on the region, those inadequacies became more than apparent as homes were evacuated, flood damages reached the millions and of course, Route 17 looked more like a river than a highway for nearly two days.

"We’re continuing to work throughout the district to get as many systems at optimal performance as possible," said Nicholas Agnoli, the commission’s head stormwater engineer.

According to Agnoli, since gaining approval from the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] for a floodplain management plan, the NJMC has alleviated two problem areas in Carlstadt. He said they are on the verge of alleviating another threatening businesses in the industrial section of town and are soon ready to tackle the long delayed Route 17 project.

Most recently, Agnoli said the commission wrapped up a $328,000 clean-out and tide gate installation to the Moonachie/Carlstadt drainage system. The area of work, which was tested to the brink April 15 during what the U.S. Geological Survey is now calling a 100-year storm, included the clean-out of three-quarters of a mile of drainage ditches perpendicular to heavily industrialized roads such as Commercial Avenue and the Gotham Parkway.

Here's a photo of Route 17, near Ridgewood from a storm last week.

A project to widen Route 17 and build a new overpass at Essex Street will also install new drainage that should alleviate flooding in that area, which has repeatedly caused multi-mile traffic jams in heavy rain.