New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a state of emergency order Wednesday night amid historic rainfall that flooded and all but halted the city’s subway system.
In New Jersey, Newark Airport officials confirmed to The New York Times that it suspended all flight activity due to “severe flooding” after Gov. Phil Murphy (D) declared his own state of emergency.
De Blasio called on New York City residents to stay inside, and stay off city roads and subways, footage of which shows water cascading through certain stations.
The mayor’s order comes after the National Weather Service issued its first-ever flash flood emergency for parts of New York City, described as a warning issued for “exceedingly rare situations when a severe threat to human life and catastrophic damage from a flash flood is happening or will happen soon.”
The weather service issued the same flash flood emergency an hour earlier for northern New Jersey.