NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — The New York City subway system is starting to get rolling again Thursday morning after flood waters caused much of the system to come to a screeching halt Wednesday night.
.@MTA Service Update. More trains are slowly coming back online in limited capacity. @CBSNewYork pic.twitter.com/BGfhOOFKxz
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— Aundrea Cline-Thomas (@AClineThomas) September 2, 2021
First responders had to rescue passengers on buses and trains.
Gov. Kathy Hochul praised MTA workers for braving the storm to assist New Yorkers. Hochul said she spoke with President Joe Biden, who promised to sign a disaster declaration, bringing federal aid to bear.
“What’s so fascinating is that the records that were broken in Central Park, for example, 3.15 inches in one hour, it broke a record literally set one week earlier,” Hochul said. “That says to me that there are no more cataclysmic, unforeseeable events. We need to foresee these in advance, and be prepared.”
IDA’S IMPACT:
Hochul said that, after Sandy, the state had made major investments in resiliency in coastal communities. She said that Ida proved that the threat from major storms has since evolved.
“But where we have a vulnerability is in our streets, with the higher elevations now. With the flash floods, which are unknown before. This is the first time we’ve had a flash flood event of this proportion in the city of New York and in the outlying areas. We haven’t experienced this before, but we should expect it the next time,” Hochul said.
“When the streets get flooded, what happens next? The water rushes down, not just through the highways, but also finds its way to penetrate our subway system. And as a result, what happened yesterday? Trains were shut down. People were stranded. The fear that they must’ve experienced when this occurred, I cannot imagine. And I don’t want this to happen again,” Hochul said.
READ MORE: Ida’s Impact: LIRR Gets Back On Track, Major Outages Remain On Metro-North, NJ TRANSIT
CBS2 learned there were at least six evacuations on subways stuck between stations as a result of Ida.
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Passengers at the 28th Street station couldn’t believe their eyes as an avalanche of water came pouring in.
PHOTOS: Ida Deluges Tri-State Area With Historic Rainfall
On Staten Island, an MTA bus had to stop after being submerged in waist-deep water. Firefighters walked passengers and the driver to higher ground at a nearby building.
The driver of another bus managed to navigate the flooded roads and get to safety. Passengers stood on top of their seats as water covered the floor.
WATCH: MTA Acting Chairman Janno Lieber Shares Latest On Subway Flooding
In a statement overnight, MTA Acting Chair Janno Lieber said in part, “New Yorkers should not attempt to travel until further notice. We will be deploying maximum pump capacity and surging workers into the system when it’s safe so that as this epic storm abates service can be restored as soon as possible.”
Subway and bus service remains limited, but for those who must travel, the MTA suggests taking the bus.
Mass transit systems throughout the Tri-State Area experienced serious disruptions as a result of the storm. Service has since been restored on the LIRR, but outages remained on Metro-North and NJ TRANSIT.
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Stick with CBS2, CBSN New York and CBSNewYork.com for more on the storm and its aftermath.