When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. - Hunter S. Thompson

09 August 2007

Subway Lockdown

Yesterday was interesting in New York City. 
All it took was about three inches of rain in three hours to bring the nation's largest mass transit system to its knees.

Subway tracks were swamped, buses were overwhelmed and commuter trains were held up for hours because of flooding Wednesday. Some roads became waterways, and one woman was killed in a car accident during the storm.

The weather also created problems for the region's airports, where delays of up to an hour were reported, and thousands of people throughout the region lost electricity for part of the day.
NYC storm leaves mess, and questions (AP via Yahoo)

Thank God, Carrie and I have jobs that can be done from home rather easily, and all the equipment that we need to do that. (For about four years, both of us worked, simultaneously, out of our tiny Greenwich Village apartment; it was our home *and* our office.)

We hunkered down in the air conditioning, connected remotely to our computers at our workplaces, and got a good day's work in.

On a normal, dry day, NYC pumps a lot of water out of its subway tunnels... that's just part of having an underground transportation system.  

It seems to me that the MTA needs some outside help in figuring out how to keep heavy rains from shutting down the transportation system for an entire metropolitan region, though.

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