Friday was one of New York’s wettest days

Parts of New York are cleaning up and drying out this morning after one of the state’s wettest days and decades flooded entire neighborhoods the state of emergency has been declared after heavy rainfall drenched subway stations and homes and turned streets into rivers Albert de latella is wading through this

Story for us from the breaking news desk Albert what’s the latest from New York you know the cleanup is underway in New York Natasha following that downpour that hit much of the area yesterday the torrential downpour led to states of emergency as you mentioned for New York

City and Long Island many areas saw a record rainfall including JFK Airport which recorded nearly 22 centimeters of rain by Nightfall that surpasses the record set for any September Day previously set by Hurricane Donna in 1960. you can see some of the scenes there a flash flood warning was in

Effect for New York until midday the torrential downpour lasted throughout the morning Rush Hour snarling traffic and disrupting Subway and commuter rail service flight into LaGuardia Airport were briefly halted in the morning and then delayed after that late into the night people in the area were working to pump out their basements

My wife and I have been pumping water out of the basement since 11 o’clock this morning that’s 12 hours almost yeah and I don’t think there’s any end in sight but you know we’re fighting the battle my garage is in the basement and I was waiting for

The water to just flow down into there and ruin the whole basement and I was like what do we do there’s no we can do you just ride it out despite the states of emergency and urging from the mayor Eric Adams to stay home if possible schools remained open

And many adults went to work the Silver Lining here officials haven’t revealed any storm-related deaths or critical injuries a major storm about two years ago saw 13 deaths there was one close call though at the Central Park Zoo when a sea lion named Sally you can see her

There briefly escaped her enclosure due to the flooding and was exploring a plaza inside the property the zoo confirmed she was safely returned the flood water has receded and all is well at the zoo and with Sally good I’m glad Sally’s okay so Albert all kidding aside there has been a

Significant increase in these flooding incidents in recent Years in New York so what’s the explanation for that there has been they’re pointing to the Aging drainage system combined with these more frequent large Storms New York said drainage system it can handle about four and a half centimeters of rain per hour

Uh part of yesterday’s morning Rush Hour exceeded five centimeters per hour so that exceeded that capacity making matters worse about 60 percent of the system combines storm runoff with sewage so when it gets overwhelmed that mix can get into waterways it can also get into houses into basements into businesses uh

One here’s one woman who was dealing with that directly years late and we have the same ongoing problem it’s not just us it’s a whole neighborhood it’s constantly putting in thousands of thousands of dollars into our homes and nothing’s getting resolved and it’s the city sewer pipes that are

Doing this and it’s just frustrating as a homeowner because I have a sick dad and I’m a teacher so it’s hard to make ends meet and now with this it’s again like this to get fixed it needs to get fixed right away a 2021 report from the city says that uh

Upgrading those systems would take decades and attach to their pegging the cost of those upgrades at about 10 or 100 billion dollars okay thank you Albert you’re welcome

A torrential downpour swamped the New York metropolitan area on Friday, shutting down some subways and commuter railroads, flooding streets and highways, and delaying flights into LaGuardia Airport. Officials haven’t revealed any storm-related deaths or critical injuries.

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