Back to the Future

Necessity...mother...[re-]invention, maybe every cloud does have a silver lining;

All 10 subway tunnels between Manhattan and Brooklyn were flooded during the storm, as the saltwater surge inundated signals, switches and third rails and covered tracks with sludge, she said.

The entire system wasn't flooded and the authority was already pumping water Tuesday. Workers ultimately will have to walk all the hundreds of miles of track to inspect it, she said, and it wasn't clear how long that would take. Trains had been moved to safety before the storm.

The 108-year-old subway system "has never faced a disaster as devastating as what we experienced last night," Chairman Joseph Lhota said in a statement.

As devoted readers of HSIB know, the NYC subway would not exist but for the entrepreneurial efforts of one August Belmont (also a famous breeder of race horses; The Belmont Stakes).  If they want their subway restored, maybe the private, profit-seeking sector has the answers.