To the subway’s chief maintenance officer, the storm’s encroaching waters were even more obvious. He was forced to flee with his flashlight from the South Ferry station in Lower Manhattan as the waters charged over the platform and up the terminal stairs, chasing him like an attack dog.
It has been less than two weeks since the most devastating storm in the New York City subway system’s 108-year history. Seven tunnels beneath the East River flooded. Entire platforms were submerged. Underground equipment, some of it decades old, was destroyed.
The damage was the worst that the system had ever seen. And yet, the subways have come back — quicker than almost anyone could have imagined.