Photo: AFP
New York City is advising non-emergency vehicles to stay off city streets, as crews spend the day cleaning up from Wednesday night's historic flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida.
A message from the mayor's office recommended commuters "stay home as much as possible today until conditions improve."
Ida brought with it more than a month's worth of rainfall in a single day. Rain, flooding and wind from the storm has so far been blamed for 9 deaths, locally, and millions in damages.
The downpour was so immense that it flooded many streets and submerged a number of subway stations and tunnels in several feet of water.
During the height of the storm, New York City issued an all-out travel ban.
The MTA was still recovering Thursday morning with limited service through the morning rush. Straphangers were advised not to expect trains to arrive on time.
"Service across our system is extremely limited as well work to recover from last night's heavy rainfall and flooding," read a message from the agency. "Stay home if you can. If you must travel, please note that train times may not be accurate. Check new.mta.info before you go, & listen to announcements."
The National Weather Service recorded 3.15 inches of rainfall in Central Park in a single hour, surpassing a record of 1.94 inches set just two weeks ago by Tropical Storm Henri.
Rainfall totals were between 3 and 8 inches throughout the Tri-State area, with as much as 10 inches in some isolated locations. New York City ended up with 7.19 inches in Central Park.
More than 200,000 were still without power as of Thursday morning, mostly in New Jersey, where a tornado touched down in the southern part of the state.
Over two dozen New York and New Jersey counties remained under a flood watch, with officials noting it may take a few days for local rivers to crest.