The MTA has estimated it sustained between $75-to-100 million in flooding damage across subways and commuter rails  during the record-breaking rainfall from Tropical Storm Ida earlier this month. The agency is seeking funding relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“The subway system is not a submarine, it cannot be made impervious to water,” MTA interim Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said at Wednesday’s board meeting. “We just need to limit how quickly it can get into the system, and help the city to figure out how to do more drainage at the street level.”

Lieber announced the MTA would be working with the city to identify the most flood-prone stations and to figure out how to make them more resilient—whether it’s clearing drains, plugging holes, or building higher curbs to prevent water from draining down into the stations.

It took five days to bring back service on Metro-North’s Hudson line, due to washouts and mudslides along its lines. The MTA said Thursday that its crews restored slopes that were washed out at a number of stations and also  “installed more than 600 cubic yards of heavy stone fill to stabilize areas surrounding tracks for safe operation.” 

Lieber also said he plans to add amendments to the MTA’s current $51.5 billion capital plan to include new flood resilience measures, although he admitted it could take up to a year before those are approved.

After Ida, the MTA pumped 75 million gallons of water out of the subways. MTA officials said it had enough pumps to remove the water and get most trains running close to a regular schedule again hours after the storm.

Unlike Sandy, which flooded the system with corrosive salt water, the rain water wreaked slightly less havoc on the system. After suspending almost all subway service, it required what the MTA called a “herculean effort” to get trains running again. 

Governor Kathy Hochul has vowed to look into the MTA’s response to the storm and how it could’ve prepared better. 

MTA leadership said this week at a City Council hearing and its MTA board meeting that closing stations for flash flooding events wouldn’t be productive and would strand passengers since it’s hard to predict which stations will be most impacted. They noted the city’s sewer system just can’t handle the historic amount of rain that dropped in such a short period and the water has to go somewhere, which is inevitably, into the subway system.