Wednesday, August 8th

7:58 am.

I was suprised to see a few rain drops on the window when I opened the bedroom curtains this morning. The lights on my A/C unit were blinking, suggesting I'd lost power. I flipped on NY One to find out if something happened. It turns out, this morning between 6:30-7:30 am, southern Queens and southern Brooklyn had a tornado warning!

The severe weather is now headed east over Long Island, but in it's wake, it has caused street flooding throughout every borough, high wind damage (broken tree branches, roof damage, etc.), cancelled Metro North service in and out of Grand Central, and massive delays on every single subway and bus line in the system in every borough.


Hmm. How will this affect my commute?


Train
The MTA is giving a rare piece of advice: "The MTA recommends that commuters avoid the suways for the time being."

An MTA official on NY One said, "Please stay home. If you're about to leave your house: don't. We probably won't be able to get you from Point A to Point B. Every subway and bus line is affected. The commute will get better as each hour passes. Wait 30 minutes. "

The MTA website is all but shut down because so many people are hitting it. NY One's morning news anchor, Pat Kieren, tells me there's so much water they're removing from the tunnels, it's causing massive delays.

Ok. So, I can't take the subway. Let's suss out my options here...

Bus
Normally, this might be a good option, but with the roads so unpredictable and as it is a part of the system, I feel like it might not be worth the frustration. Also, the buses will probably take the hit from the subway commuters and NY One reported "highly frustrated commuters" at the Times Square bus transfer where there were too many people for the amount of buses. Yikes, no thanks.

Car Service
I'd bet, with the major roadways taking the traffic from the smaller roads that might be flooded and with the majority of the redirected and highly frustrated commuters already out there, this isn't the best option. Also, I don't want to pay $35 to get to work.

Bike
Well, this seems like it might be my only option right now. My only hesitation is that I've never made the ride. So, it's about what my body can do right now and what the streets between me and Fort Greene look like. The more I watch news and stretch on the floor, the more I hesitate to hop on my bike.

Yikes. I dunno. I'll check back in a few...

ASIDE: Here is yet another reason why I freakin heart New York: As a Midwesterner, I grew up with tornados (or threat of tornadoes) as a part of normal weather patterns. So, watching Brooklyn Boricuas describe how the winds in Bay Ridge sounded like a freight train was amazing, "Oh my God! You don' even understand! It was like, 'WHOOOOOOOOOSH!' I was like, 'Oh my God!' De whole apartment shook and I was like 'I gotta get unda somefing!' Y'know? "