Severe Storm Delivers NYC Historic Rainfall, Disrupts Transit and Causes Flooding

On the night of July 14, New York City experienced an intense storm that resulted in over 2 inches of rain within an hour, with Central Park recording 2.64 inches—the second-highest one-hour rainfall total in the city’s history, only behind Hurricane Ida in 2021. This deluge caused significant disruptions across multiple subway lines, including the 1, 2, 3, E, F, M, R, A, B, C, and D lines, which faced suspensions and severe delays. Notably, the 28th Street station on the 1 line and 34th Street–Penn Station saw platforms inundated, with water even entering train cars, forcing passengers to stand on seats. In response, the MTA had to pump approximately 16 million gallons of water out of the subway system.

The storm also led to extensive flooding on roadways such as FDR Drive, Bronx River Parkway, and Taconic and Saw Mill River Parkways, stranding vehicles and causing traffic to grind to a halt. In New Jersey, flash flooding prompted a state of emergency, resulting in road closures and the tragic loss of at least two lives in Plainfield.

The flooding was exacerbated by the city’s sewer and stormwater systems being overwhelmed, as they exceeded their design capacity of around 1.75 inches per hour. This led to water backing up into subway stations and manholes popping open. MTA Chair Janno Lieber highlighted that these flooding issues are becoming a recurrent problem, despite ongoing infrastructure upgrades.

Following the storm, transit crews worked overnight to restore service for the morning commute. City officials, including the Mayor’s Office and the Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner, briefed the media on the storm’s severity and emphasized the urgent need for infrastructure resilience to cope with such extreme weather events in the future.