This summer was a wet one in the northeast, particularly in the Adirondacks in New York where I worked at a summer camp. Many weeks forecasted thunderstorms nearly every day, leading to many hours of card games and arts and crafts. Some of our hiking trails became unusable, and everything was waterlogged.
To get away for the weekend, my coworkers and I decided to drive down to New York City. In order to avoid traffic and expensive parking, we decided to leave our car in the small town of Cold Spring, NY and took an hour-long train into Grand Central. The weather was sunny and hot, exactly what you would expect for a summer day in the city until mid-afternoon on Sunday, July 9. As we were making our way back to Grand Central, clouds filled the sky. Thinking nothing of it, we walked into the main hall of the train station, where we saw screens flashing warning statements saying that service beyond Croton-Harmon station was temporarily suspended on the Hudson Line, our line. We were assured that buses would be coming to drop people off at the stations past Croton-Harmon, but we weren’t given any specifics. Figuring it would be better to be 45 minutes away from our car instead of an hour and a half, we got on the train, hoping buses would arrive shortly.
While on the train, it started to rain, then pour. We claimed a spot inside the station as more and more trains dropped people off. Announcements kept saying trains would be going a few stops further soon, but conductors shooed us away every time we went down. As the station filled with more and more people with no word of when buses would be coming, we began to get worried. We still had a three-hour drive from Cold Spring, and we had no way of getting to our car. There were no rideshares willing to drive us 45 minutes, even using the carpool feature, and our closest parent was three hours away. We all had work early the next morning. Without any other options, I started texting old friends from high school who still lived in the area, and one of my friends drove half an hour in pouring rain to get us, then another 45 minutes to drop us off at our car. It was dark, the roads were horrible, and at this point, we weren’t sure if there was a way out of Cold Spring. Finally, after several detours, we found our way to the highway, not stopping until we were far enough from the storm that the rain stopped. We got back at around 1 am, making my 6:30 alarm painful, but much better than the alternative of still being at that train station.
We didn’t realize it at the time, but travel was impossible in much of the Hudson Valley due to the flash floods. Governor Hochul declared a state of emergency and unfortunately, one person died during the flooding. Cold Spring got 6.25 in of rain, and some places got over 8 in. It took several days for the Hudon Line to resume its normal operations north of Croton-Harmon.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/09/nyregion/flooding-west-point-orange-county.html
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/wx/afos/p.php?pil=PNSOKX&e=202307102332
https://hudsonvalleycountry.com/floods-cause-metro-north-to-suspend-hudson-line/
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/flooding-halts-amtrak-metro-north-csx-operations-in-hudson-valley/
That sounds crazy!! Shoutout to your friend for doing that drive! It's crazy how unreliable buses in NY become after any geohazard. I once had a 2-hour commute home due to a blizzard that slowed the bus schedule insanely long. Glad you were able to make it home that day even if you didn't get much sleep!
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