Old New York subway flooding footage recirculates online

"People are swimming in the subway in New York City. just think of all the trash and rodent feces and diseases. NYC MTA is in a state of emergency due to heavy rain and flooding," says a September 29, 2023 X post sharing the video of the woman in waist-high water.

Image

Screenshot of an X post taken October 5, 2023

The clips can be found on other social media platforms in Spanish and French.

New York state Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency (archived here) after a September 29, 2023 downpour flooded city streets and highways and interrupted subway and airport transportation.

"Roads are closed and public transit is delayed or suspended in many areas due to flooding," Hochul said in a September 29 X post. The inundations led to major service disruptions, local media reported.

Despite the spectacular September flooding, the subway footage of a woman in a pink shirt braving a deluged subway station is more than two years old.

A reverse image search using keyframes from the clip on TinEye yielded a Daily Mail article from July 2021 (archived here), which includes a post from X user "PaulleeWR," sharing the same video.

AFP contacted this user who confirmed that she recorded the footage on July 8, 2021 in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. She also published another video, along with several others taken during the flood, as Instagram stories on the same date.

A Google keyword search for the phrase "line 1 NYC subway 157st flooded" yielded several articles referencing videos of the flooded subway station. These reports link the sequence with the passage of Storm Elsa, which drenched the city in July 2021.

AFP has debunked other posts claiming to show recent weather events in New York City here.