vip in the city

Wet n’ Wild

What a day to return to the city.

I was awoken at dawn by the sound of howling winds and driving rain pounding against my bedroom windows. The early morning news reported a tornado in Brooklyn (!!!) – according to Wikipedia (where of course there’s already an entry), the strongest on record ever to strike the city.

The storm ripped the roofs off brick rowhouses, upturned over a hundred cars, and felled dozens of trees. Oh, and completely shut down almost the entire mass transit system in New York City.

The scene at every station was pandemonium. What a mess: flooded tracks, crowded platforms, and everywhere stifling humidity and mass confusion. I made it as far as Times Square before turning back: the West Side express trains weren’t running past Penn Station. For a while I considered crossing town to try my luck on the East Side. Good thing I didn’t: the Lexington lines weren’t running at all.

None of which was apparent from inside the station, where hapless transit workers were left with minimal (or just inaccurate) information to deliver to the hot and irritable rush hour masses.

Don’t shoot the messenger!