Hurricane Irene (2011)
The New York subway has shut down only twice in the past decade, in 2011 for Hurricane Irene and in 2012 for Hurricane Sandy. At noon on August 27, 2011, New York’s subways halted, as Mayor Bloomberg ordered 370,000 people to evacuate their homes.
Yet just two days later on August 29, New York began opening many of its subway lines, despite massive property damage and flooding. Surprisingly, there were about seven times less arrests in the city on August 27 than a normal Saturday. This was the first time in the MTA’s history that the subways shut down due to the weather.