Mayor de Blasio Declares State of Emergency as Record-Breaking Rainfall Drenches the City

    by Yehudit Garmaise

     Shortly after Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency in New York City tonight, as the tail-end of Hurricane Ida resulted in a flash flood and not the two to four inches that were expected, the city issued a travel ban from now until 5am on Thursday.

     "All non-emergency vehicles must be off NYC streets and highways," the city's office of Emergency Management just said.

     While weather experts predicted that the rain should stop tonight between 3 and 4am, since early evening on Wednesday, the storms have yielded rain that is flooding expressways, subway stations, roads, and homes.

     In the past three hours in New York City, as recorded in Central Park, the amount of rain that fell was 5.20 inches, which is a record that occurs only once every 1,000 years.

     In Boro Park, the streets, the nearby expressways, the subway stations, the shuls, and many of the buildings, such as the Pinnacle Condominiums at 4913 19th Ave., could not stop the flow of water from entering.

    Some brave Boro Parkers ventured onto their roofs to unclog their gutters.

    As drains are overloaded by the unusually large amount of rainfall, many Boro Parkers’ basements are flooding, and drivers struggled to drive home in floodwaters that were approaching their cars’ windows.

     Many cars are stalled and struggling to get home after getting stuck in the downpour of the many feet of water that have descended on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Staten Island Expressway.

     “Please stay off the streets tonight, and let our first responders and emergency services get their work done,” Mayor de Blasio urged New Yorkers. “If you are thinking of going outside: don’t. Stay off the roads. Don’t drive into these heavy waters.

     “Stay inside.”

     Even Chaverim Brooklyn, which usually arrives quickly to help anyone whose house floods, tonight was overloaded with calls to which they could not respond.

     “As long as it is still raining and the streets are full of water, there’s really nothing we can do,” tweeted Chaverim Brooklyn, which said that any water will immediately return after being pumped by its volunteers.

     “Please refrain from calling until the rain stops,” the volunteers were forced to post.

     Chaveirim, of course, did not call it a night, as torrents of rain continued to flood Boro Park. In the most heartening sight of the night, volunteers made it their business to rescue elderly residents from basement apartments, escorting the people who needed it most: up to dry land.

     “By Thursday morning,” however, weather enthusiast Yaker Bigeleisen told BoroPark24, “the sun will be shining.

     “The skies will clear, the temperatures will cool down nicely, and the air will feel less humid on Friday, Shabbos, and Sunday.”