How Do You Keep a Subway From Flooding in the Age of Rising Seas?
You seal it up, but you have to test it first.
How Do You Keep a Subway From Flooding in the Age of Rising Seas?
Copy Link
The flex gates to protect subway stations are tested with lots of water. MTA // CC BY-2.0
In This Story
As the city of Venice continued to wade through its alarming floods, commuters half a world away in Brooklyn noticed something strange—a subway station flooded above street level, a sight that hadn’t been appeared since 2012, when Superstorm Sandy inundated nearly a dozen tunnels and many stations around the city. Except this station entrance was flooded on a sunny November day. It was no act of god, but rather a test to see if the city would be ready the next time around. The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), like other major transportation agencies around the world, especially the ones that operate underground facilities in areas near the ocean, is deeply concerned about storm surges and rising seas.