Rain Derails New York City

Does anybody else find it interesting/tragic that a few inches of rain has the power to derail New York City?

Last night we had what seemed like a pretty mild storm, but apparently the rain flooded the subways and damaged trees and cars. If Manhattan is the heart, this morning most of our arteries were severed, with several of our most critical subway lines down or seriously delayed. The MTA is advising that people just stay home.

I walked to work this morning (Hell's Kitchen to Midtown East) and there was a stampede of foot traffic. It was like trying to walk through a state fair on a weekend (minus the morbidly obese people). A line for cabs in front of Grand Central went most of the way down the block.

This morning at work, around 10:30, it was a total ghost town. People trickled in, telling stories of two-hour commutes on buses and in cabs, or walking thirty or forty blocks to work. It doesn't help that it's 90 degrees out there and that there's a heat advisory this afternoon. (Three people have reportedly died from the widespread heatwave, and supposedly it's not ending anytime soon.)

Anybody have great commuting stories from this morning? Kvetch away, friends.

Update: Midtown West may have gotten it easy, but Brooklyn had its first tornado in 118 years. It tore the roofs of houses, shattered windows, yanked trees out by their roots, and overturned cars. Good times!

Comments

[zeff]

It won't last forever - the LA traffic does ^^

[Matt L]

It took me three effin' hours to make the trek from Brooklyn to the UWS for work. I hope that with this fare increase the MTA might see fit to invest in some functioning water pumps.

[VinL]

It wasn't just a little rain for me. I live in Bay Ridge Brooklyn and apparently we got a tornado last night.....

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=bay+ridge&s=rec

[Eric]

I blogged my commute in near-horrific detail this morning, but the short of it is I walked about 30 blocks and from the east sde to the west side of Manhattan right through midtown. Hellish.

[Aaron]

Wow, seriously, this has nothing to do with the rain, but your comment "fat people carrying bags of mini donuts". Coming from someone who is well aware that we gay's face discrimination and name calling, and fight for fairness and equality because of our sexuality, it is ironic that you would put down a whole section of the population by your implied insulting of "fat people". Normally, I wouldn't have cared less, but everyone is so into being politically correct, I thought I would jump on the "train" too.

[Josh H.]

Matt: That's crazy! I hope the commute home is easier.

VinL: I think we must have gotten it a little easier in Hell's Kitchen. I heard stories from people who live in Queens and Brooklyn that were much more harrowing than the ones from Midtown. Still, they did say that we got overnight the amount of rain we usually get in all of August, so that's something.

Eric: All that walking normally wouldn't be quite so horrible, but the heat made it so much nastier, didn't it?

Aaron: My apologies to you if I've offended. I was writing from my experiences of going to the Minnesota State Fair where there really are an inordinate amount of very, very large people, most of whom have food in their hands, as do the majority of the fair-goers, so to be fair maybe singling out the overweight folks wasn't the greatest thing ever.

Meanwhile, I braved the crazy commute home and I'm off to see a Broadway show with my friend Kris. See you guys soon!

[Jeff]

I lucked out. I made the 10 minute or so trek over to the 1 line to go uptown from Rector Street and it was closed. Walked another block over to find the N closed. So I walked back home, right next to the World Financial Center and got in the cab queue there. I ended up getting to work at about the same time I would've if I'd actually gotten on the subway at my usual time. I count myself among the lucky.

I was up for the storm this morning and it was quite impressive. Vivd lightning and some quite loud thunder. Reminded me of the storms we'd get down in Alabama.

[Ryan]

The same storm that hit you guys last night came through Cleveland yesterday morning and caused all sorts of problems here as well. Many of the highways around town were closed due to flooding and one of the major highways had one of its lanes wash out, which caused problems all day today. We also had really bad flooding last Thursday. What's up with all of this wild weather lately?

[KD]

Which show did you see?

[chris]

i tried to leave queens yesterday. for 2 hours i tried before giving up and going home. this mornings commute in sucked.

[Aaron]

The book I just finished, "The World Without Us" has a chapter all about New York City (without us, meaning people), that was utterly fascinating. It is incredible how frail the city may actually turn out to be. If you get a chance, pick up the book, it's a great and eye opening read.