(The following story by John Valenti appeared on the Newsday website on April 16.)
NEW YORK — The National Weather Service is still calling for heavy rain Monday, with patchy fog — and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. But while forecasters said that a slight chance of snow is still possible by Wednesday, the good news is the worst weather is over.
And, local authorities said, the major nor’easter that hit the metro-New York area over the weekend wasn’t as devastating as first feared — at least not locally.
But try telling that to Long Islanders — and, metro-New Yorkers — Monday morning.
Because Central Park received a near-record 7.5 inches of rain Sunday, the second-wettest day ever recorded there. Because a large number of low-lying areas on Long Island — the shore in Freeport, areas of Bayville and eastern Long Island, such as Asharoken — reported significant flooding. Because, as one longtime resident of South Bellmore, Rich Levow, 55, said on Monday: “There are ducks swimming in the street.” This, outside his home on Army Place.
Flooding west of Jamaica station is wreaking havoc with the Long Island Rail Road schedule Monday morning, rail road officials said, causing delays of 30-to-45 minutes on all trains into Penn Station.
The cause, according to LIRR spokesman James Castle, was “high water” in the vicinity of Hunter’s Point Avenue.
The rail road cancelled all service to the Hunterspoint Avenue station Monday morning and the flooding condition was causing additional delays systemwide on the LIRR. Officials asked customers to check for information on delayed trains on the MTA Web site. Most trains were operating near on-time into Jamaica, Castle said.
New York City Transit were honoring LIRR tickets on subway and buses out of Jamaica, Woodside and Flatbush Avenue Monday, due to the problems on the LIRR, Castle said.
There also were delays of almost two hours on arriving flights at LaGuardia Airport due to flooding and weather, though delays at John F. Kennedy International Airport were generally less than 15 minutes for arriving and departing flights, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
This, after the unusual spring storm grounded at least 500 flights Sunday at the region’s three major airports and caused power outages to more than metro-area 10,000 households. As of 7 a.m. Monday, the Long Island Power Authority was reporting fewer than 1,000 customers without electricity due to scattered outages, mostly because of downed trees, across Long Island.
The New York State Department of Transportation was reporting an accident late Sunday night that closed Sunrise Highway between County Road 39 and Head of Pond Road in Southampton due to downed electrical lines. It was unclear as of 7:45 a.m. if the road was still closed, authorities said.
The more than 5.5 inches of rain that fell in the New York region Sunday shattered a record for April 15 that had stood more than 100 years, the National Weather Service said. The previous record for an April 15 was 1.8 inches in 1906.
New York City opened nine emergency storm shelters in flood-prone locations on Sunday — and ferry service to Fire Island was canceled due to the storm. There were sustained winds of 30 to 35 mph and gusts of up to 48 mph at John F. Kennedy International.
But residents and authorities on Long Island said the storm had not hit the area as severely as was first predicted.
“Long Island kind of lucked out,” LIPA President Richard Kessel told Newsday Sunday night. “We kind of fell into the middle of the storm. We were spared a lot of damage.”
The American Red Cross opened three shelters at high schools in Nassau County, but had closed one in Valley Stream by late Sunday evening. As of 8:30 p.m., no one had taken shelter at the facilities.
“We were very fortunate today,” said Frank Cassano, chief executive officer of the Nassau Red Cross. “Yet it is always better to be prepared in situations like this.”
(This story was supplemented with an Associated Press report.)