Flooding In New York Is So Bad That Streets And Subways Are Being Inundated With Rainwater

New York City is getting hammered by historic flooding, so much so that torrents of rainwater are pouring into the city’s subway stations, AccuWeather is reporting.

By noon Monday, the Big Apple had logged 3.28 inches of rain. For a coastal city at sea level, that’s a problem. For a city that relies heavily on an underground transportation system for millions of daily users, it’s an even bigger problem.

Of course, surface streets are faring little better, with several motorists finding themselves, and their vehicles, submerged under standing water.

AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dave Dombek blames the city’s misery on a potent storm system that is far from being done.

“The air mass came up from the Gulf states and combined with air coming off the Atlantic Ocean, so it had a lot of moisture with it.”

As of this writing, the worst of the storm appears to be over — at least, as far as the City That Never Sleeps is concerned. Cities north and east of New York — Boston especially — should brace for impact as the storm system heads in that direction.

That the system is moving to Boston is little comfort to the millions of daily commuters who rely on underground trains to get by. As you will see by the multitude of videos and photos below, the subterranean stations and tunnels are providing little in the way of relief from the rain. If anything, it’s just making things worse, by funneling the rainwater right into those stations, as Buzzfeed News reports.

One of the most dramatic videos of the subway flooding comes from Twitter user @jbguild, who posted a dramatic video of water cascading into the 14th & Broadway station, giving users at the bottom a lake of ankle-deep water to wade through.

And the rain doesn’t appear to have any interest in sparing those who make it as far as the cars themselves. Witness this torrent that anybody getting into or out of this particular train had to pass through.

Even inside the trains, there was little relief.

In case you were wondering, New York’s subway system is kept dry by a system of pumps, pipes, and other methods that pump out 13 million gallons of water on a dry day. At least, that’s the theory, according to the New York Times. The system is also aging — over a century old in some parts — prone to breakdowns, and poorly maintained.

As of this writing, according to WCBS-TV (New York), Monday’s storm has only produced one injury: a man was struck by lightning at a construction site. He was alert when taken to a hospital; his condition has not been made public, as of this writing.