Ida Aftermath: Cars Strewn Along Side Of Roads As Flood Waters Recede, Hundreds Of People Rescued
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The roads and rails are slowing reopening across New York, but many are still feeling the aftermath of Ida.
MTA pictures showed sections of tracks washed out by flood waters. In one area, a mudslide even sent trees and rocks raining onto tracks.
Metro-North says it will resume service Friday on an enhanced weekend schedule for the Harlem and New Haven lines.
Subway service still remains spotty on more than a dozen lines after water gushed into stations Wednesday night.
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Eighteen-wheelers were dragged one by one off the Major Deegan Expressway on Thursday night after getting stuck in the flood waters for nearly 24 hours.
Throughout the day, dozens of abandoned vehicles were strewn around many roads like bumper cars.
"The NYPD is way backed up, so I came to move one of my client's cars," PJ Marcel, of Trackside Collision Inc., told CBS2.
Marcel said he towed more than 70 cars in one day, including one the flood waters swept up onto the guardrail along the Grand Central Parkway with the driver still inside.
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"They climbed out of the sunroof and they walked to safety, where a vehicle passed by and grabbed them and took them off the exit," Marcel said.
The NYPD carried out more than 400 flooding rescues during the storm, including a livery cab driver who got stuck in the flood water on the 65th Street transverse in Central Park.
On Staten Island, Andrei Farkash said he had to leave his vehicle overnight when emergency responders helped him escape.
"I couldn't open the door, the water was already this high," he said.
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Another car was crushed when heavy rainfall took down the canopy at a gas station in Whitestone, Queens. The driver was paying for his gas inside the market at the time, and no one was injured.
"That poor person whoever's car that is. I feel bad for them," Whitestone resident Sean Hubish said.
The Department of Transportation says if you are looking for your towed car, call 311.
Click here for other flood safety tips and how to report damages.