Tunnel Vision Incision

⛔️ 𝗕𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗡𝗢𝗪
This is video from the Queens-Midtown Tunnel showing water pouring into it.
The East River is above it
(Video by @whatisnewyork)#NYC #Tunnel pic.twitter.com/GqyYxotbcq

— Ꮃꭺꮮꮮ Ꮪꭲꭱꭼꭼꭲ Ꮪꮋꭼꭼꭲ (@wallstreetsheet) September 4, 2024

 

 NY Post

Water from the East River flowed into the the Queens Midtown Tunnel Wednesday afternoon after a drilling contractor accidentally punched a hole in the roof and caused a deluge that terrified drivers, according to officials and shocking video.

Workers were doing “investigative work related to the design of the upcoming UN esplanade project” when they punctured a hole in the edge of the tunnel, Josh Kraus of the New York City Economic Development Corporation said at a press conference.

The busy passageway sprung a leak in the south tube on the Queens side at around 12:30 p.m., prompting officials to close it for roughly 45 minutes.

Video of the massive leak, showed cars driving trough the tunnel as water cascaded down from square openings.

“Well that’s scary,” said someone in a video posted online by @whatisnewyork.

By 3 p.m. officials had reopened one lane in each direction — but traffic remained snarled.

The tunnel fully reopened hours later, according to Mayor Eric Adams.

“Both tunnels are now back open to east/west directions of travel. There will be some residual delays as traffic gets moving in the area. Please be patient,” the mayor wrote on X just after 6 p.m. 

MTA CEO Janno Lieber said city-funded private contractor caused the damage while drilling to find pylons for the East River greenway and that the hole was 2 1/2 inches in diameter in the roof, according to Fox News.

“We determined it was a drilling contractor who drilled about a 2.5 inch hole through the cast iron liner [of the tunnel],” Cathy Sheridan, President of MTA Bridges and Tunnels said at the press conference.

“We don’t know when we will be open. We hope it will be within hours and not days,” she said.

 

City claims tech difficulties for delays in covid data as cases rise again.

 

  

Progress New York

 The administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-New York City) has stopped publishing data about Coronavirus test results on the Agency Web site of NYC Health. Some testing data was published was on Monday, when the positivity results for multiple New York City zip codes approached 15 per cent., according to a tweet sent by Councilmember Mark Levine (D-Morningside Heights). Monday was also the first day of return for over 50,000 public high school students for in-person learning. But delays in the full reporting of testing data reportedly began as of Sunday, according to a social media post.

According to social media posts, the Agency Web site has been announcing, since Sunday, a “Data Delay,” explaining that, “Due to delays in receiving and processing data from New York State, some data from the past week will be lower than expected. Data for those days will be updated when we receive it.”

A request made to the City Hall press office was not answered, and a spokesperson for Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-New York) would not address the blame game in the City Agency Web site’s message. In recent weeks, Mayor de Blasio has attacked Gov. Cuomo in the press, calling him to step down due to a sexual harassment scandal, mocking him over the size of his hands, and asking him to slow down the economic reopening due to the uncontrollable pandemic.

 Mayor de Blasio’s withholding of COVID-19 testing data, and the lack of any explanation from Gov. Cuomo’s office for how the City Agency Web site blamed the State Government for the delays, comes at a time when the Federal Government is reportedly investigating the Cuomo administration for undercounting COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes. Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo have been under pressure to reopen the economy in order to encourage economic activity for their big business donors and to fund Government operations. To some extent, the Government executives have also used reopening announcements to quell criticism from the public and the press. Whereas, in other pandemic hotspots, like France, the Government there has opted for another confinement order to deal with evolving variants of the virus, the lack of vaccines, and the shortcomings of the vaccines, Democrats in the United States have faced pressure to open schools and travel, two sectors that provide day care for working parents and tourism for the service industry-focused economy, respectively.

Today's COVID indicators show that de Blasio is juking the stats of the recovery for all of us.