From: brennan@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Joseph Brennan)
Subject: New York and the Nor'easter
Reply-To: brennan@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Joseph Brennan)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 05:59:48 GMT

What has been called the worst winter storm to hit New York this century
brought heavy rain and strong winds, and raised tides already high under a
full moon, causing still uncalculated damage from flood and wind throughout
the area on Friday Dec 11, and continuing as a mixed storm of snow and rain
on Saturday.  This is the rail transit story, gathered from newspaper, radio
and television accounts, with a special nod to the transit reporting by New
York Newsday.

This type of storm is known as a Nor'easter and is more common in New
England, especially Maine, than here.  A large low pressure system came up
the coast and stalled near Delaware Bay for most of Friday, pumping strong
winds of wet ocean air from the northeast over the New York metropolitan
area.  While a large storm had been predicted, talk was mainly over whether
it would be rain or snow, and not whether it would be one of the worst most
people have seen.

The storm moved in overnight and some of the damage was already evident by
morning commute time on Friday.  Transit lines continued to drop out during
the morning but many lines were operating again by the end of the afternoon.
Some streets in lower Manhattan along the East River were flooded, however,
closing businesses, and many other employers sent their staff out early.

SUBWAY

At 8:25, the Lenox Avenue Yard in Manhattan, on the bank of the Harlem
River, began to flood.  148th St--Lenox Terminal station, on the land side
of the yard, was closed at 8:40 because of flooding, and route 3 trains were
sent to the Bronx or turned at 96th St.  By 10:10 the yard was under 4 feet
of water, and water flowing into the subway portal was becoming the main
concern.

Meanwhile flooding in Jamaica Bay cut off the Rockaway Line from the rest of
the system, and service was suspended at 8:40 on route A south of the
junction at Rockaway Boulevard.

Water wasn't the only problem.  At 9:15 an elevated station canopy fell down
under high winds at 238th St--White Plains Road in the north Bronx, forcing
route 2 to turn back at Gun Hill Road.  At 10:05 a maintenance shack on the
Jamaica elevated near Cypress Hills station blew onto the tracks and forced
turning back route J trains at Eastern Parkway.

The tide was still rising.  At 10:15 the 14th Street tunnel flooded enough
to halt service on route L between Brooklyn and Manhattan.  14th Street
itself flooded near the East River in Manhattan.  I am not sure why this
particular tunnel got hit worse than the crossings in lower Manhattan, where
streets also flooded. 

Then, at 10:50, the signals went out on the entire IRT and BMT systems.  All
trains on the numbered routes, routes J L M N R, and parts of routes D F Q,
had to put on the brakes, and call for permission to move at "slow prepared
to stop" speed to the nearest station, where passengers were discharged.
Traction and lighting power remained.

What had happened was the that Con Ed plant at 59th St and 10th Ave,
bordering the Hudson, had flooded to over 4 feet, which took out the
generator supplying 25-cycle AC to the signal system.  The only other
working plant producing 25-cycle, at 74th St and East River, was also taking
water and went out at 11:30.  Ironically a second generator at 59th St was
not flooded, but was out of service for maintenance.  (I cannot account for
the outage at 10:50 if the 74th St plant was up until 11:30, but that's the
news report.)  

Note, the IND system and every other customer in the city uses 60-cycle AC,
but the subway modernization program won't eliminate 25-cycle signal
circuits until 2012, per a TA spokesperson.  No other Con Ed customers lost
power except in local flooded areas.  A Con Ed spokesperson called these
their two oldest plants, and the 59th St building is the original IRT
company powerhouse from 1900.  Both are adjacent to water to permit coal
delivery by barge, like other older plants.

Meanwhile, the Newtown Creek tunnel flooded, cutting route G in two, and the
Lenox Avenue flood by this time was filling the 149th St tunnel used by
route 2 between Manhattan and the Bronx.  Routes A C were rerouted via
Houston Street (like route F), by one report, suggesting flooding somewhere
in the route via lower Manhattan, not too surprising considering the
flooding overhead at South Street, where fish and shellfish from the Fulton
Market were floating blocks inland (yeccch!).

Signal power was back at 15:40, and by then some flooding and wind-blown
debris had been removed, so most of the system was running again.  The
remaining closed areas were Lenox Terminal and the 149th St Tunnel, back
sometime Friday night, and the 14th Street Tunnel, still out Monday.  The
14th St line is the one where tunnel lighting is tied into the third rail,
during a wiring project!  Route L is operating in two parts, Manhattan
only and Lorimer St--Rockaway Parkway.

PATH

If the subway got it bad, PATH got it worse.  The flood at Hoboken Terminal
(see below) was pouring water into the tubes, and high water somewhere in
the meadows took out the Newark line.  At 8:00 they were still operating
service from Journal Square to World Trade, but at 8:48 they gave it up,
and no passenger train moved until midday Monday.

Reports differ, but the flood appeared to be worst in the Hoboken branch
line, through Newport/Pavonia, and in the Hudson tunnels to World Trade.
How it could not have run downhill to fill the other Hudson tunnels I do not
know, but no report put flooding there.  Water was reportedly up to 8 feet
deep in places.  This is without doubt the worst flooding ever back to the
1908 opening.  The whole system was still out during the morning rush on
Monday, and at Hoboken extra bus and ferry services were laid on.

Newark--Journal Square--World Trade came back midday Monday.  A TV report
Monday night showed Hoboken station closed but with water at least below
platform level, if not out, but the reporter did not say, and pointedly no
one would confirm service at Hoboken tomorrow morning.

N J TRANSIT

The Hoboken Terminal trainshed was 3 feet deep in water by 8:00.  TV
pictures showed water about to floor level of the few trains stranded there,
the damnedest thing I ever saw.  Hoboken was of course built as a tidewater
terminal with ferry slips, so it is not on high ground, but to my knowledge
it was never flooded enough to halt train service.  Reports said no train
service was operating on the Hoboken Division, although I would think some
Morris and Essex service might have operated from suburbs to Newark-- I do
not know.  Apparently the flood subsided by Saturday morning although I
could not find a report detailing that.  Nearby streets were also flooded,
and of course the PATH station at the terminal seems to have been the
source of all that water in the tubes.

On the Newark Division, the North Jersey Coast Line was out during the
morning, probably because of floodwater at multiple points.  The coast was
very hard hit, and although the railroad runs about a half mile inland, it
crosses many inlets on low bridges.  Shark River at Belmar seems to have
been a bad problem.  By Monday, service south of Long Branch was still out.
The Northeast Corridor and Raritan Valley lines apparently operated normally.

At Point Pleasant Beach, most of the boardwalk was reported lost, putting in
doubt the future of Jenkinson's Beach Train, the quarter-mile narrow gauge
line in the dunes on the ocean side of the boardwalk between South Pavilion
and Inlet Pavilion.  All the rolling stock is stored at South, and while the
track normally disappears in the sands at winter, it's not clear how much
survived this storm.

METRO NORTH

Metro North suspended operations at 10:52 and resumed service on the Harlem
Line outbound at 12:30.  I do not have any other details, but both local
flooding and downed trees are likely causes.  Amtrak suspended New
York--Albany service for some part of the day; there must have been flooding
at least near 59th St, where the Amtrak line is below the level of that
subway power plant that flooded, and probably much of the Hudson Line was
a problem.  (The Hudson is tidal to Poughkeepsie.)

LONG ISLAND

While the barrier beaches along the Atlantic were hard hit as usual in any
storm, there was also extensive flooding in "mainland" communities along the
Great South Bay.  The Long Beach branch was closed at 6:15 Friday morning as
both the line across the bay and most of Long Beach were flooded, and the
branch was still closed on Monday.  The only other line out was the Port
Washington branch, under water in the low ground around Shea Stadium, but
that was cleared probably by Friday night.  There were scattered delays
from objects falling on the tracks.

STATEN ISLAND

The Ferry was shut down, a very rare occurence, from 7:50 to 13:30, with one
boat stranded at sea until 11:20, as the water was so high at the terminals
that the boat could not come in safely.  The Ferry was deliberately shut
down again at 17:00 for the night.

Staten Island Rapid Transit, nearly pointless without the ferry anyway, shut
down at 8:27 for unspecified reasons that may have included flooding at both
terminals.

Joe Brennan     Columbia University in the City of New York
                ("affiliation shown for identification only")
via Internet:   brennan@columbia.edu
via BITNET:     brennan@cunixf