Soho Streets Turn Into Rivers as Flash Flooding Slams NYC, Grounds Flights at Three Airports

New York City experienced severe thunderstorms Saturday, July 18, when a line of severe weather parked over the five boroughs and dropped rain faster than the drainage system could handle it.

The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning covering most of the city Saturday afternoon, according to Newsweek. Rainfall rates hit 2 to 3 inches per hour in some spots, according to New York Metro Weather, a private forecasting outlet cited by both Newsweek and news.meaww.

Soho took the hardest visible hit. Video obtained by the New York Post shows the intersection of West Broadway and Grand Street completely submerged, with taxis creeping through water and pedestrians wrapping garbage bags around their legs to wade through it.

Taylor Prokes, 35, lives above Felix Bar & Restaurant on that corner and filmed the scene from her window. "I've never seen anything like it. It was madness," she told the Post. She said customers from a nearby pancake shop started walking outside with trash bags over their legs after floodwater got into the restaurant.

Tringa H, the 32-year-old manager at Felix, told the Post she'd never seen flooding like it in New York, "besides Hurricane Sandy." She said the scene didn't scare off her regulars. "They were pulling their pans up, pulling their skirts up, and walking in filthy water to come in," she said.

Sally Louhibi, 45, was watching the France-England World Cup match at Felix when the water started rising outside. "I feel like the world was exploding," she told the Post, adding that she and her husband, Chierif Louhibi, 51, a decade-long resident of the neighborhood, had never seen the street flood like that.

According to witnesses cited by the Post, the water in Soho started rising around 12:15 p.m. Saturday, peaked by 2 p.m., and had fully drained by 2:30 p.m.

It Wasn't Just Soho

The flooding wasn't confined to lower Manhattan. News.meaww reported that footage from Queens showed cars boxed in by rising water, and that floodwater poured into the Roosevelt Avenue-Jackson Heights subway station, leaving commuters wading through it.

Major roadways took a beating too. The Long Island Expressway, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and the Clearview Expressway all saw closures at multiple points because of standing water, according to NYC Emergency Management figures cited by Newsweek.

Air travel got hit hard as well. The Federal Aviation Administration issued ground stops at LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark Liberty, according to news.meaww, causing delays that rippled across the region.

By the time the worst of it passed, close to 2.5 inches of rain had fallen citywide, with lower Manhattan and parts of western Brooklyn and Queens seeing the heaviest totals, news.meaww reported.

Officials Saw It Coming

This wasn't a surprise storm. NYC Emergency Management activated its Flash Flood Emergency Plan ahead of the rain, coordinating with utility providers and forecasters, according to Newsweek. City crews were sent out beforehand to clear catch basins, staff emergency response centers, and put downed-tree task forces on standby.

NYCEM Commissioner Christina Farrell warned the storms would move fast but hit hard. "Saturday's storms will be fast-moving, but the strongest ones can produce damaging winds and intense downpours with little warning," she said, according to Newsweek.

The Weather Service flagged a bigger danger than just standing water. Forecasters warned the storms were capable of producing straight-line wind gusts of 50 to 70 mph, and said an isolated tornado couldn't be ruled out, per Newsweek.

Meteorologists pointed to "training" storms, repeated storm cells rolling over the same patch of ground, as the reason rainfall totals blew past initial projections of 1 to 1.5 inches and climbed toward 2 to 4 inches in spots.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted a warning on X telling New Yorkers to stay off the roads. "Don't risk your safety in these dangerous conditions," he wrote, according to Newsweek, urging residents to use public transit instead of driving or walking through flooded areas.

What's Unresolved

None of the sources report storm-related deaths or injuries as of Saturday evening. The extent of damage to Soho businesses like Felix and how long airport delays lingered into Sunday remain unclear.

New Yorkers have asked similar questions before, after Hurricane Ida flooded basements and killed residents in 2021: whether the city's century-old storm drainage system, built for a different rainfall era, can keep pace with the kind of high-intensity, short-burst downpours that are becoming more frequent. City Hall hasn't announced any new infrastructure response tied to Saturday's storm.