MTA Promises To Stop Queens Subway Flood Chaos
BY LIZ GOFF

Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) officials are vowing to help Queens straphangers get from here to there during the next heavy rainstorm.

Improved technology, text-message alerts to straphangers and improved communications systems are the high points of an ambitious plan to prevent the chaos that resulted from a raininduced subway shutdown on August 8 that MTA officials announced last week.

MTA Executive Director Elliot Sander said the plan was developed by a task force charged with investigating the cause of the August 8 chaos - when forecasters failed to predict a major storm that dumped 1.6 inches of rain in less than half an hour, crippling the city subway system.

MTA Executive Director and CEO Elliot Sander said the plan was developed by a task force that probed the cause of the August 8 subway chaos. Straphangers were left treading water on August when forecasters failed to predict a major storm that dumped more than 3three inches of rain in an hour, overwhelming the city sewer system and paralyzing the subways.

Agency officials also identified the city's six most flood-prone subway stations, five of which in Queens. They include the G, R and V lines' 65th Street, 36th Street, Steinway Street and Northern Boulevard stations and the E line Parsons Boulevard station.

Sander said the August 8 chaos was caused by a failure to predict the storm, too much water pouring into the subway system and not enough information reaching transit workers and straphangers

To prevent a reoccurrence, the agency will establish an emergency response center and will equip key personnel with Doppler radar equipment to help in predicting major storms. The agency will also keep some transit workers informed with Blackberrys or PDAs, Sander said. The agency is predicting that the improvements will carry a $30 million price tag.