New York declares state of emergency amid flash flood warning

New York officials on Saturday said they had “officially transitioned into the recovery phase” following “historic” rainfall on Friday throughout the Northeast.

“Our teams remain fully engaged on the ground, rigorously working to restore essential services and evaluate the full scope of the damage to infrastructure and buildings. Emergency Management is actively coordinating with our partners to execute emergency plans that encompass operations like debris management, addressing downed trees, damage assessments, sheltering, and community outreach,” an Emergency Management spokeswoman said in an email to The Independent.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Saturday morning that she’d spoken “with the White House yesterday, and I spoke with majority leader [Sen Chuck] Schumer, who contacted me immediately,” the governor said. “They’re prepared to support an emergency declaration, a declaration of disaster, from the federal government, if necessary. There is a threshold that has to be met – $30m worth of damage …it’ll take a number of weeks for us to add up and calculate that.”

A spokeswoman for NYC Mayor Eric Adams told The Independent on Saturday that “we are in the process of assessing the damage.”

Lessons learned from previous storms helped avert disaster Friday as the New York region faced torrential downpours and flooding, officials said – but the governor particularly called out bus drivers for the heroic part they played in the day’s events.

“At one time, during the storm, we had 4300 buses on the roads at the peak –about 3500 a little bit later in the day,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Saturday. “What these buses did, and these brave bus drivers, the bus operators were able to give an alternative, a lifeline, to people who otherwise would have been stranded. The last thing we want ever is for someone to be stranded in a tunnel. That is frightening.

“So when things are starting to look bad, the trains are being pulled back into the station, passengers discharged, well what happens then? Where do they go? And that’s something we dealt with literally by the minute yesterday, making sure there were buses in place, enough operators called in to service them, to make sure we could keep it going, as well.

“So these bus drivers were the true heroes,” she said. “They drove into water not knowing what was on the other side; they knew their job was to get people to the next destination safely. And they did an extraordinary job – 99% of the bus routes continued during the storm.”

More than two dozen rescues were made on Friday during heavy rainfall that flooded regions of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, according to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The governor held a press conference in New York City on Saturday following “historic” rainfall levels one day earlier.

“I want to thank all the first responders who did show up, including our Swift Water teams who made 28 rescues – 28 rescues in raging waters to help save New Yorkers in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island yesterday,” she said. “And thousands of utility crews have also been on standby, ready to keep our state moving.”

The governor announced during the press conference that full weekend MTA service had been restored thanks to workers’ diligent efforts under challenging conditions.

“There are some New Yorkers who’ve never seen the likes of which we experienced yesterday in their entire lives,” she said. “This event was historic, in some areas was record-shattering, and it is the most rain ever recorded in a single day in a place like JFK ever – not just this summer, not this year, but ever.

“And the record is still coming in,” she said. “We’re still monitoring, the rain is still falling. And it’s such in some places, it’ll be the most rain that has ever hit in 70 years.”

The National Weather Service on Saturday shared a graphic showing residual rain in the same region where Friday flooding plagued much of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

“There is lingering rain moving across much of the region as indicated here with our Doppler Radar imagery late this morning,” NWS New York NY posted on X, the platform previously known as Twitter. “The rain will be mostly light and is expected to last into this afternoon before tapering off from west to east.”

In a late-night Friday update, the account advised social media users that Flood Watch had been cancelled for “all locations except New Haven County Connecticut and Suffolk County New York.”

Before the end of Friday, new daily rainfall records had already been set at JFK Airport, Central Park, LaGuardia Airport and Bridgeport Airport, according to the NWS.

New York transit problems caused by Friday’s flooding had been almost entirely fixed by Saturday morning, with most lines back up and running the previous evening, an MTA spokesman told The Independent.

Subways had largely resumed normal function by about 9pm Friday, with further flooding problems to the N line servicing Brooklyn fixed by 5am Saturday, he said. MetroNorth lines had also resumed following diligent efforts of workers – “basically, just waiting for the water to recede, just having crews help do that process,” he said. “Buses, thankfully, did not get heavily impacted.”

The spokesman said Long Island Rail Road lines were the “same deal” after “two little hiccups” on routes closer to the water.

Meanwhile, NYC sanitation officials urged Bronx residents to bring hazardous items to a previously scheduled safe disposal event on Saturday in the Bronx, tweeting after the floods Friday that rubbish collection was ongoing and the department would “provide additional services as needed, including collecting storm debris and material that comes out of flooded homes.”