New York Flooding 2023 Mayor Says Shelter Mandate Should Exclude Migrants

New York Flooding 2023

New York Flooding 2023 Mayor Says Shelter Mandate Should Exclude Migrants, Nearly 8 inches of rain were recorded at John F Kennedy International Airport on Friday, which was the most in a single day since 1948. Meanwhile, Brooklyn received a month’s worth of rain in only three hours.

New York Flooding 2023

Remnants from Tropical Storm Ophelia pounded the city in the morning, hitting Brooklyn and Queens particularly hard. New Yorkers shared images of inundated streets, with water rising up half the diameter of some car wheels.

At the Grand Army Plaza/Flatbush Avenue subway station in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, a video shared on X (formerly Twitter) showed the exit stairs had become a waterfall, with a couple of riders slowly climbing up and an umbrella getting washed down to the platform level.

Traffic makes its way through flood waters along the Brooklyn Queens Expressway

Traffic makes its way through flood waters along the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (Picture: AP)

— Breaking news 24/7 (@aliifil1) September 29, 2023

People walk in a flooded Grand Army Plaza subway station following Tropical Storm Ophelia

People walk in a flooded Grand Army Plaza subway station following Tropical Storm Ophelia (Picture: Reuters)

Other videos showed water leaking down the roof, wall and above the train tracks inside subway stations.

Subway service was suspended in some parts of the transit system and others saw heavy delays. As of 3pm, several trains were suspended including the B, G and W, and a dozen were partially suspended. Another seven experienced delays.

‘This is a serious storm, and we’re taking it seriously,’ stated MTA chair and CEO Janno Lieber.

‘We have a detailed plan in place to protect our network and deliver safe service throughout the storm. MTA crews have been deployed at strategic locations so they can respond quickly.’

New York City Department of Environmental Protection workers attempt to clear blocked drains after heavy rains as the remnants of Tropical Storm Ophelia bring flooding across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast

New York City Department of Environmental Protection workers attempt to clear blocked drains after heavy rains as the remnants of Tropical Storm Ophelia bring flooding across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast (Pictures: Reuters)

NYC’s subway is leaking.

A flooded subway station in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn 

A flooded subway station in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn (Picture: Reuters)

On a flooded street in Brooklyn’s 4th Avenue, a whirlpool formed above a storm drain as cars on the street were half-submerged, shows a vide obtained by the New York Post.

The city braced for up to seven inches of rain.

‘I am declaring a State of Emergency across New York City, Long Island, and the Hudson Valley due to the extreme rainfall we’re seeing throughout the region,’ announced New York Governor Kathy Hochul shortly after 10am.

‘Please take steps to stay safe and remember to never attempt to travel on flooded roads.’ 

Cars in floodwater on the FDR highway in Manhattan

Cars in floodwater on the FDR highway in Manhattan (Picture: Getty Images)

My message to New Yorkers impacted by today’s severe rain: Turn around, don’t drown.

We’re expecting to see more rain throughout today & tonight. Roads are closed & public transit is delayed or suspended in many areas due to flooding.

Please avoid travel as much as possible.

Special Operations Unit rescue personnel with the Westchester County Emergency Services paddle in rafts as they check buildings for victims trapped in heavy flooding in the New York City suburb of Mamaroneck

Special Operations Unit rescue personnel with the Westchester County Emergency Services paddle in rafts as they check buildings for victims trapped in heavy flooding in the New York City suburb of Mamaroneck (Picture: Reuters)

By early afternoon, Hochul reiterated her message to New Yorkers to ‘please avoid travel as much as possible’.

‘Turn around, don’t drown,’ she wrote on X (formerly Twitter). ‘We’re expecting to see more rain throughout today & tonight. Roads are closed & public transit is delayed or suspended in many areas due to flooding.’

Some parts of the city saw up to five inches of rain before 11am.

LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal A was shuttered, with a video showing travelers walking through a pool of water outside the terminal and the lobby also infiltrated.

Residents walk through floodwaters during a heavy rain storm in the New York City suburb of Mamaroneck in Westchester County 

Residents walk through floodwaters during a heavy rain storm in the New York City suburb of Mamaroneck in Westchester County (Picture: Reuters)

Travelers attempt to flee ankle-deep water from Ophelia at LaGuardia Airport. https://t.co/ZONKvu98Z0 pic.twitter.com/4bfnpcB4by

— New York Post (@nypost) September 29, 2023

A person tries to unclog a drain grate along a flooded Prospect Expressway after it got stuck in high water during heavy rain and flooding on Friday

A person tries to unclog a drain grate along a flooded Prospect Expressway after it got stuck in high water during heavy rain and flooding on Friday (Picture: Getty Images)

Firefighters performed rescues at six basements in New York City flooded by torrents of water, according to the New York City Fire Department.

Rainfall is forecast into Saturday morning.

The National Weather Service called the weather event dangerous and life-threatening and said rainfall totals over 8 inches were ‘increasingly likely’ in some parts of the tri-state area that includes New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Photographs and videos of New York City have shown rainwater spurting from between subway station tiles, cars bobbing in floodwaters that turned Brooklyn intersections into lakes and parts of LaGuardia Airport inundated as the city and surrounding areas have been deluged by heavy downpours on Friday.

Between midnight and the afternoon, rainfall rates up to two inches per hour dropped more than five inches of water on Central Park and more than eight inches on John F. Kennedy International Airport—a record for any calendar day in the latter. That precipitation overwhelmed ground that was already well saturated from the previous weekend’s rains (courtesy of the remnants of Tropical Storm Ophelia) and the storm drains and subway pumps used to funnel rainwater away.

The rain has been reminiscent of what might happen in a tropical system—and has reminded many New Yorkers of Hurricane Ida’s deadly flooding two years ago—though the exact mechanics were a bit different in this case. Here Scientific American answers some questions readers may have about this and similar events—particularly how climate change comes into play.

How does this compare with other major rain events in New York City’s history?

We can’t say exactly where this event will rank because the rain is still falling, but comparing it to Ida is not off base. Ida’s peak rainfall rates were higher—about three inches per hour—and it dropped 7.13 inches on September 1, 2021, the worst day of rain during that storm. And though the current storm has caused major flash flooding, “we haven’t seen the catastrophic flash flooding” that happened during Ida and killed 11 people in basement apartments in Queens, says Dominic Ramunni, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s office in Upton, N.Y.

This event has dropped more rain than Ida did on JFK Airport, though—it is the most rain the airport has recorded since records began in 1948. Every storm is a little different, and where the heaviest bands of rain form can vary, which means some areas experience higher totals in some storms than in others. “That's why we see this variability from event to event,” Ramunni says.

How do you get such a deluge without the involvement of a tropical storm?

Though tropical cyclones (the broad term for tropical storms, hurricanes and typhoons) are notorious for the torrents of rain they can bring, nontropical systems are capable of causing heavy downpours if they have enough moisture available.

Tropical systems are driven by convection that is fueled by warm ocean waters. They often develop a clear “eye” at their center that is completely surrounded by swirling thunderstorms. That setup has not been present with the system over New York City on Friday.

Rather that system has been driven in part by an area of low pressure to the south of the city that is an offshoot of another, more unusual area of low pressure called an “inverted trough.” In meteorological speak, that means it has caused a northward bulge in the atmosphere instead of a more typical southward one. The whole setup has made moisture-laden air converge and rise upward. As it has risen, the air has cooled and formed clouds and rain. That moisture has been funneled onshore like a hose aimed at the city.

How does climate change factor into the situation?

It would take a specific study—called an attribution study—to give any hard numbers on how much more likely this event would be with climate change than without it. But broadly speaking, scientists know that rising global temperatures are making heavy downpours more likely.

The 2018 National Climate Assessment (a new version of which is due sometime this year) found that the amount of rain that fell during the heaviest 1 percent of rain events had increased by 55 percent across the Northeast since 1958, with most of the increase happening since 1996. That trend will only get worse as global temperature rise, causing more evaporation from oceans and lakes and giving storms more water to fuel deluges.

How can I stay more aware of pending storms and flooding threats?

Ramunni says that having more than one source for receiving extreme weather alerts is ideal. These resources can include alerts that government agencies send out to your phone, local news and a weather radio.

When forecasters issue a watch for a flood (or other type of weather event such as a tornado), it indicates that people should be prepared for those conditions in their area. If a warning is issued, that means they should take immediate action.

In the case of floods, one of the biggest warnings meteorologists give is to never, ever drive into floodwaters, even if they don't seem very deep. Just six inches of water can reach the bottom of the average passenger car and cause loss of control, and only a foot of water can float many vehicles.