NOTE: The latter three-quarters of this article contain narrative accounts which may or may not be of interest to you.
Our views on the general problems shown by today's flood come in the first seven paragraphs.  As to the narratives,
Fennel's and Westie's tales are briefer and less didactic than mine.  You might even enjoy them.

 Henry J. Stern
 August 8, 2007

Apres moi, le deluge.  -- Louis XV

God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
No more water, the fire next time  --   James Baldwin

Yesterday, it was the moist and stifling heat which caused widespread discomfort for many  New Yorkers.  August 7 was a very unpleasant day for those who ventured out to either to go to work or to seek pleasure..
.
However. reversing the words of the spiritual, yesterday's combination of sweat-inducing heat and humidity which blocked its evaporation (which would have made you feel cooler)  was followed by heavy thundershowers overnight, which flooded the underground tracks and signals, blocking most subway service this morning.
 
While the MTA cannot be held responsible for the rain, the authority did a very poor job of  letting their millions of daily passengers know what was happening.  As a result, countless (probably millions) of hours were wasted, and people were exposed to extreme heat and overcrowding.  When we were kids, the Black Hole of Calcutta was referred to as the last word in congestion.  (Now the city of Calcutta, once also known as the first nudie musical, is Kolkata, and Bombay is Mumbai; will Bollywood become Mollywood?)
 
The pundits will pontificate as to how well the system worked in the emergency. There was a press conference with the newly humble governor and the ever modest Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the MTA, Lee Sander, who was one of Iris Weinshall's four predecessors as Transportation Commisssioner under Mayor Giuliani.  Link here to the summary of the press conference, from the New York Times City Room blog. The MTA website is apparently still under water.

In the traditional oral history where individuals bearing witness to great events describe their small parts, Fennel and Westie have joined me in describing their experiences getting  to work this mornng.in this morning’s flood.   This may well be more than you want to read, it is essenially picaresque rather than analytic.  If so, we advise you to stop here.

If, however, you want three worm's eye views as to how individuals coped with the flood conditions, read on.
If any of you had a flood experience or epiphany you would like to share with others, send your words to us and we will post them on our blog .

Before the next flood arrives, and we can be sure as Katrina that it will, sooner or later, we should demand that the MTA
have a plan in place to keep people off the subways, and to provide enhanced bus service. For example, what if everybody's cell phone went off warning people about the condition.  You guys are paid to think of stuff like this.  Do it.

StarQuest's tale:
 
Without disputing anything the pooh-bahs may say about this morning's unpleasantness,  we would like to report our own experience in traveling from 86th Street and York Avenue to Park Avenue South and 30th Street (NYCivic).  Arrived at the bus stop at 8.15 a.m., normal crowd, weather dry with occasional sprinkles from street trees.  First noticed an unusually large number of people boarding the M-86 at First Avenue, we missed three lights while people got on the bus..  On Second Avenue the crowd was even larger.  (If you live long enough, you may see a subway built there.)   Usually 2nd Ave is a minor stop since most people walk to Lex.  There was also an even larger group waiting on the southwest corner for the  southbound M-15.  Third Avenue turned out to be a brief stop, but misfortune struck at Lexington Avenue.
 
First, there were large numbers of people coming out of the stairway leading to the southbound tracks.  From prior experience, we know that is a sign that at least one of the lines is probably not running.xtremely crowded.  The crowd spewing up from the stairways headed for the back door of the bus, and used it as an alternate entrance, since there was  a long line waiting to get in the front door.  It was fair because most of those people had just gotten off the bus, hoping to transfer to the subway.  Masses of people filled the narrow sidewalk of Lexington Avenue south of 86th Street waiting for the M-100, 101, 102 and 103, but from the back seat of M-86, we couldn't see any southbound buses.
 
Since I actually had a seat on the bus, I decided to stay put until Fifth Avenue, where one might catch a southbound M1, which, as luck would have it, passes out office.  At Fifth Avenue there was almost no crowd, which meant that the bus had just passed by, and another was not likely to come for a while  In the rain, the park looked greener than usual.

We continued on to Central Park West, where we saw the same phenomenon as at Lexington Avenue, people in suits climbing out of the station at about 8.40 a.m.  Usually the people coming upstairs at that time are household workers, so it was clear that something was different on the subway.  A man yelled out, "The train only goes to 59th Street."  We did not know if he was right or wrong, but it was the only information we had, so we continued on.
 
Another large crowd was sighted on Columbus Avenue, waiting for the southbound bus.  This was additional proof that whatever had stopped the east side trains had also struck the west side.  We assumed it was a flood, because of the heavy rains overnight.  We did not know how much of the subway system was affected, or how long the system would be out..  Did the water spill from one set of tracks to another.  Was there a giant pool of water somewhere downtown, at the lowest point in the system?
 
At Broadway, we saw the crowds at the southbound bus stop, and elected to take the southbound No. 1 train.
The platform was crowded, bvut using the techniques described in an earlier article,  we were able to get a spot in the second car of the local train.  Not a seat, of course, but a place to stand inside the closing door.  The conductor tried to close the door eight to ten times before it finally shut.  I thought of that last helicopter from the roof of the embassy in Saigon in 1975, with all the people trying to get on board..  Next to 79th Street, where a healthy crowd awaited us, trying to squeeze onto the train  The mob pushed me more deeply into the car, which was comforting.  I will avoid personal details of the people who were crowded against me, but we did get to know each other in a neutral, non-verbal way.  We looked on each other as fellow sufferers.
 
Although the express train was in the 72nd Street station at the same time as our No. 1 local, I did not make a move to catch it.  Rule 33-B applied: "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."  The local stopped briefly at 66th, no one was going to Lincoln Center that early in the day.  59th is a station where you could switch to the IRT,.  Are you old enough to remember what those letters meant.  If you're not, e-mail us, and we will tell you, and throw in  the BMT, and the IND.
 
The train stopped in the tunnel for about ten minutes between 50th and 42nd Streets, because of what we were told by the mechanical voice was train traffic ahead.  Since we had waited about eight minutes for the train at 86th Street, I wondered how we had caught up so quickly (in six stations) with the train that was so far ahead of us.. 
 
At Times Square, we left the good old No.1, which continued south, and took an escalator down to the No. 7 train to take us to Grand Central.  I do not see why anyone besides a tourist or a disabled person uses the obsolete Shuttle.  There is a really long walk at the east end of the shuttle, and the west end is not particularly convenient either.  On the other hand, it is part of the city's first subway line, relatively close to the surface and not dug as deeply as the more recent No. 7 train..  After two stops on the No. 7,  we took an up escalator to the Lexington Avenue station.  We were then told by an MTA employee blocking the stairs to the platform, that there were no southbound trains, local or express, leaving Grand Central.
 
Eschewing the elevators, which had there own lines of passengers waiting to board, we climbed the stairs to Grand Central, Terminal, looked at the great chamber so well restored by the MTA at such enormous cost with borrowed money, and headed for Park Avenue to catch the M-1 bus where it stops at the southwest corner of 40th Street and Park Avenue.  We climbed Murray Hill, but there was no sign of an M-1 at the stop.  We happen to have rules dealing with this situation: "12-W-1 is Don't Wait, Walk." and its converse, 12-W-2. is "Don't Walk, Wait"  It requires insight and judgment to decide which rule to follow in any situation. The answer depends on the time and the circumstances and how much you are carrying.  This morning, unaware of the travails ahead, I carried two heavy briefcases. My bad.
 
The solution to 12-W was to wait ten minutes, and then give up waiting and start walking, which gave the worst result, consuming both time and energy.  However, the crowds at the intermediate bus stops on Park Avenue were so large that I knew that if, by the intervention of a greater power, I were ever to see a live bus,  it would be easy to catch it at whatever stop it had reachead.   None of these decisions had to be taken, however, because there was no bus.  I saw I a number of business types wiping the sweat from their brows as they walked northward on the sidewalk.  You go slightly uphill from 40th to 37th, and then downhill from 37th to 30th.  The Union League Club, an elegant place, is on the southwest corner of Park and 37th.
 
If you are as geographically minded a New Yorker as I am you may have noticed that there are four mini-hills on Fifth Avenue, which have distinguished buildings at their tiny apexes (apices?).  They are the New York Public Library at 42nd, St. Patrick's Cathedral, at 50th, the Frick Collection (for which the Lenox Mansion was demolished) at 70th, and the Andrew Carnegie Mansion at 90th Street.  Look carefully when you pass those landmarks, and see the rise in the earth.
 
At any rate, we made it, walking on the sunny sidewalk to 30th Street before laying eyes on an M-1, and there was no subway service on the No. 6 line either. We arrived at work at 9:59 a.m., elapsed time l hr, 44 min.   Normal travel time - 35 min.   The feeling of righteousness gave me a high that lasted at least five minutes.  The worst part of the experience was the total lack of information from the MTA as to what was going on, which might have averted a few heart attacks among the hundreds of thousands of people, many elderly, whose day was disrupted.
 
My staff also had a difficult time making it in, and I am pleased that they both did.  Their narratives, relatively unedited in the interest of authenticity, follow.   Think of Chaucer and the Canterbury tales, but please do not compare us with him.

Fennel's tale:
 
Commuting on the Long Island Railroad has become an increasingly hit-or-miss experience.  I wish I could say that today was the first time I've felt badly used by the LIRR, but that, of course, would be a lie.  Although the incidents begin to run into each other, I would say that this is probably the fifth time in about six weeks that I've ended up trapped in a overcrowded, under-air-conditioned steel tube, courtesy of the MTA. 
 
The most memorable occasion was the time that the third rail shorted out, and we had to wait for another train to literally push us over the dead zone, where there was no electric power.  The most unpleasant was during the last major storm, that which gave us the Big Hole next to Grand Central, when, after two hours, I gave up on reaching Manhattan and waited another two hours at Mineola for an eastbound train to return me home.  My "normal" commute time, from Huntington on the Port Jefferson line, is about an hour and five minutes.  This morning I took the 8:04, which left Huntington on time. 
 
Today's ride was neither memorable nor quite as unpleasant as others, merely extremely protracted.  By my watch it took a full two hours and eleven minutes from the time my train left Huntington to the time the doors opened at Penn Station (10.15 a.m.).  That was more than twice the usual travel time.What upset me more than the interminable waiting, was the strange practise of the train moving back and forth, actually hundreds of feet forward, and then the same distance backwards.  Yes, that is what happens on the tracks for some purpose I cannot understand.  But worst was the obvious incompetence of the LIRR's public information operation, which failed to announce any warnings regarding delays, whether on their website or to the news media, by the time I walked out the door of my home at 7:45 AM.  I suppose I should consider myself blessed that I was able to reach the MTA website at all, considering the frequency with which it has gone down today.  The impression one increasingly gets of the MTA is of an organization beset by failing infrastructure and plagued by abysmal contingency planning. 
 
One would think after almost two centuries of operating a railroad, that we would have long since developed a system that could function in the rain. 
                                             
Westie's tale:

Walking down five flights of stairs is always a great warm-up before getting to work. However, in my eyes walking seventy-seven street blocks and five avenue blocks is a little excessive. It is a good thing that my boss, who is a kind, brilliant, and noble man, allows his staff to wear sneakers to the office.

Originally, I was walking in metrosexual business attire, fashionable yet heavy denim jeans which matched a nicely ironed blue collared shirt. The shirt had to come off when I hit 96 street when patches of sweat began to seep through, proving to be very unfashionable. If I had known what was in store earlier in the morning I would have paid closer attention to what undershirt I was going to wear. Yes, thousands of commuters got to wonder what “Culture Shock 2002, What are you Cookin?” meant.

Reaching 59th street was a milestone. Kind of like making it over the Queensboro Bridge when running the marathon, almost there but not really.  This is where I looked at my watch, knew I was late and figured my boss, the  former Parks Commissioner, would be elated for me to sit down on one of Central Park’s most comfortable benches and take a minute to enjoy the scenery.

After reviewing the wonderful work that my boss had a hand in crafting, I proceeded southward and eastward towards headquarters. It is at this point I fazed out and when I came to, I realized I had managed to make it to headquarters though an hour late. Sorry StarQuest. 

Do I blame Lee Sander for me being late, my T-shirt embarrassment, the sweat lingering on my body and clothing,  and my heat exhaustion? No, I’ve sucked it up. These thing happen. I look on the bright side, I have bragging rights. Now my friends and family members have to suffer hearing the story of how I prevailed during the transit breakdown that took place on such a sweltering hot day, and they, too, will have to suck it up and listen.                                                  

#400  8.8.07   2688wds