NEW YORK (AP) -- The rains came again Friday, but New York City's transit system appeared to handle the weather much better than it did two days earlier, when a powerful downpour shut down trains and subways for half a day.
Elizabeth, New Jersey, police reported Friday morning that some people had to be rescued from cars that got stuck in flooding at South & Burnett streets. Flooding was also reported on Route 22.
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But as the morning rush waned, things appeared to have gone off normally, if not smoothly.
One subway line serving eight stations between Forest Hills and Jamaica in Queens experienced a problem with its switching system, forcing some grumbling commuters to find an alternate route.
Service on three Manhattan subway lines was also disrupted after a person was struck by a train at a busy station in Harlem.
"There's no water in the system,'' said New York City Transit spokesman Charles Seaton. He said the subway system's pumps do quite well with a steady rain, as opposed to the deluge on Wednesday that dumped nearly two inches of water in some areas in just an hour.
The MTA has acknowledged that it could have been better prepared for Wednesday's storm, but said it hadn't realized how severe it would be. That storm system strengthened overnight, and hit with unexpected force that included a tornado in Brooklyn.
"There were aspects that could have been handled better by the MTA,'' Elliot Sander, the agency's executive director and CEO, said Thursday. "I apologize for the fact that the system has not performed the way we would like it to.''
Sander announced Thursday that he was forming a task force to evaluate the agency's response to Wednesday's storm and how it could make improvements.
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The group was to address, among other things, the role of the city's sewer system in the transit problems and the reasons why some water pumps weren't put in place before the storm. It would also examine the city's response to severe weather forecasts, Sander said.
He also said the agency would look into the possibility of giving a one-day credit to holders of unlimited-ride MetroCards -- the transit system's passcards -- to make up for Wednesday's mess.
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