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NEW YORK (AP) — One of New York’s wettest days in decades left the metropolitan area stunned and swamped Friday after heavy rainfall knocked out several subway and commuter rail lines, stranded drivers on highways, flooded basements and shuttered a terminal at LaGuardia Airport for hours.

Some 8.65 inches (21.97 centimeters) of rain had fallen at John F. Kennedy Airport by nightfall Friday, surpassing the record for any September day set during Hurricane Donna in 1960, the National Weather Service said.

Parts of Brooklyn saw more than 7.25 inches (18.41 centimeters), with at least one spot recording 2.5 inches (6 centimeters) in a single hour, according to weather and city officials.

More downpours were expected Saturday.

The deluge came two years after the remnants of Hurricane Ida dumped record-breaking rain on the Northeast and killed at least 13 people in New York City, mostly in flooded basement apartments. Although no deaths or severe injuries have been reported, Friday’s storm stirred frightening memories.

Ida killed three of Joy Wong’s neighbors, including a toddler. And on Friday, water began lapping against the front door of her building in Woodside, Queens.

“I was so worried,” she said, explaining it became too dangerous to leave. “Outside was like a lake, like an ocean.”

Within minutes, water filled the building’s basement nearly to the ceiling. After the family’s deaths in 2021, the basement was turned into a recreation room. It is now destroyed.

City officials said they received reports of six flooded basement apartments Friday, but all occupants got out safely.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams declared states of emergency and urged people to stay put if possible. But schools were open, students went to class and many adults went to work, only to wonder how they would get home.

Virtually every subway line was at least partly suspended, rerouted or running with delays. Metro-North commuter rail service from Manhattan was suspended for much of the day but began resuming by evening. The Long Island Rail Road was snarled, 44 of the city’s 3,500 buses became stranded and bus service was disrupted citywide, transit officials said.

“When it stops the buses, you know it’s bad,” Brooklyn high school student Malachi Clark said after trying to get home by bus, then subway. School buses were running, but they transport only a fraction of public school students, many of them disabled.

A long line of people snaked from the ticket counter in the afternoon at Grand Central Terminal, where Mike Tags was among those whose trains had been canceled. Railroad employees had suggested possible workarounds, but he wondered whether they would work out.

“So I’m going to sit here, ride it out, until they open up,” he said.

Traffic hit a standstill earlier in the day on a stretch of the FDR Drive, a major artery along Manhattan’s east side. With water above car tires, some drivers abandoned their vehicles.

Around 11 a.m., Priscilla Fontallio said she had spent three hours in her car, which was on a piece of the highway that wasn’t flooded but wasn’t moving.

“Never seen anything like this in my life,” she said.

On a street in Brooklyn’s South Williamsburg neighborhood, workers were up to their knees in water as they tried to unclog a storm drain while cardboard and other debris floated by. Some people arranged milk crates and wooden boards to cross flooded sidewalks.

Flights into LaGuardia were briefly halted in the morning, and then delayed, because of water in the refueling area. Flooding also forced the closure of one of the airport’s three terminals for several hours. Terminal A resumed normal operations around 8 p.m.

A Brooklyn school was evacuated because its boiler was smoking, possibly because water got into it, Schools Chancellor David Banks said. Another Brooklyn school was mopping up ground-floor classrooms, City Councilwoman Crystal Hudson said in an email seeking volunteers to help.

The New York Rangers and New York Islanders postponed a preseason hockey game on Long Island. And at the waterlogged Central Park Zoo, a sea lion swam out of her swollen pool. With the zoo closed because of the weather, she looked around for a bit before returning to the pool, zoo officials said in a statement.

In Brooklyn’s Crown Heights, Jessie Lawrence awoke to the sound of rain dripping from the ceiling of her fourth-floor apartment and heard strange sounds outside her front door.

She opened the door to find “the water was coming in thicker and louder,” pouring into the hallway and flowing down the stairs, she said. Rain had pooled on the roof and was leaking through a skylight.

Hoboken, New Jersey, and other cities and towns near New York City also experienced flooding. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy called for state offices to close at 3 p.m., except for essential personnel.

Why so much rain? The remnants of Tropical Storm Ophelia over the Atlantic Ocean combined with a mid-latitude system arriving from the west, at a time of year when conditions coming off the ocean are particularly juicy for storms, National Weather Service meteorologist Ross Dickman said. This combination storm parked itself over New York for 12 hours.

The weather service had warned of 3 to 5 inches (7.5 to 13 centimeters) of rain and told emergency managers to expect more than 6 inches (15 centimeters) in some places, Dickman said.

The deluge came less than three months after a storm caused deadly floods in New York’s Hudson Valley and swamped Vermont’s capital, Montpelier.

As the planet warms, storms are forming in a hotter atmosphere that can hold more moisture, making extreme rainfall more frequent, according to atmospheric scientists.

In the case of Friday’s storm, nearby ocean temperatures were below normal and air temperatures weren’t too hot. Still, it became the third time in two years that rain fell at rates near 2 inches (5 centimeters) per hour in Central Park, which is unusual, Columbia University climate scientist Adam Sobel said.

The park recorded 5.8 inches (14.73 centimeters) of rain by nightfall Friday.

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Associated Press journalists Deepti Hajela, Joe Frederick and Karen Matthews in New York, Anthony Izaguirre in Albany and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed.

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For more AP coverage of climate change: https://apnews.com/climate-and-environment

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Staring down a likely government shutdown, the White House wants to make sure any blame falls at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue — specifically on House Republicans.

After all, it’s House Republicans who have been paralyzed by their inability to pass a funding package, and Republicans who don’t want to uphold a bipartisan spending agreement from earlier this year.

President Joe Biden is hoping the rest of the country will see things the same way. It’s a murky proposition at a time of extreme political polarization, with many Americans dug into their partisan corners regardless of the facts of the matter.

A shutdown would arrive at a tenuous moment for Biden, who already faces low poll numbers and concerns about the economy as he seeks a second term in office, partially on the pitch that he offers steady stewardship in Washington.

If no spending bill passes Congress by the end of Saturday, federal workers stop getting paid, air travel could be ensnarled by staffing shortages and food benefits will pause for some of the country’s most vulnerable families.

Asked on Friday if Biden should bear any responsibility for the shutdown, White House budget director Shalanda Young said “absolutely not” and accused Republicans of being cavalier with people’s lives.

“The guy who picks up the trash in my office won’t get a paycheck,” she said. “That’s real. And that’s what makes me angry.”

Anita Dunn, Biden’s senior adviser, blamed the looming shutdown on “the most extreme fringe” of House Republicans in a presentation to allies on Thursday. She said “we have to hold them accountable” and “make sure they pay the political price.”

Speaking from the White House, she criticized adherents of former President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again coalition — but she stopped just short of using the MAGA acronym.

“We’re not allowed to actually use the M-word here in the White House right now,” said Dunn, referring to legal guidance intended to ensure compliance with the Hatch Act, which prevents political activity while administration officials are on the job. “But everyone here knows what I mean. It’s a four-letter word. It begins with M. It ends with A. It’s got an AG in the middle.”

Dunn added, “So those people are the ones who are refusing to do their job and shutting the government down for no reason.”

The current crisis is a sequel to the standoff over raising the debt limit earlier this year. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., refused to authorize the federal government to issue debt unless Biden negotiated over spending cuts.

After resisting, Biden agreed to budget talks, reaching a bipartisan deal that averted a first-ever default. But now a group of House Republicans want even deeper spending cuts and they’ve threatened to oust McCarthy from the speaker’s job if they don’t get what they want.

So far, the White House has refused to negotiate, stressing that an agreement was already in place and House Republicans are refusing to honor its terms. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday that Republicans were “solely to blame” for any shutdown, calling that “a basic fact.”

Administration officials have also been highlighting that a shutdown would cause lapses in paychecks for military service members and delays in assistance for victims of natural disasters.

The White House messaging effort has received no shortage of unintended help from Republicans themselves, with moderates criticizing their hard-right colleagues.

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-New York, said “just throwing a temper tantrum and stomping your feet — frankly, not only is it wrong — it’s just pathetic.”

Even McCarthy acknowledged recently that some members of his caucus “just want to burn the whole place down.”

At a Wednesday fundraiser outside San Francisco, Biden said McCarthy cares more about protecting his job as speaker than keeping the government open.

“The fact is that I think that the speaker is making a choice between his speakership and American interests,” Biden said.

While Washington endured partial shutdowns as long as 35 days during Trump’s presidency, Biden warned his donors that Republicans could shutter the government for weeks, if not months.

“It would be disastrous for us, especially if it became long-term,” he said.

Romina Boccia, a veteran of Washington fiscal debates and the director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, said this situation is much different than the government shutdown in 2013.

At that time, Republicans were united around trying to block implementation of the Affordable Care Act. And even then, it didn’t work. Once the shutdown happened, Boccia recalled, “it didn’t provide any more leverage,” and “Republicans caved and reopened the government when they learned the hard way that they weren’t going to get their way.”

This time, she said, “it’s not clear what they’re trying to get out of a government shutdown. It just seems dysfunctional all around.”

Some polls conducted ahead of the expected shutdown suggest Biden and Democrats in Congress could bear a substantial portion of the blame if a closure occurs. But U.S. adults generally have two conflicting priorities regarding the federal budget.

About 60% of them say the government spends too much money, but majorities also back more money for Social Security, health care and infrastructure, according to a survey by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. This enables some Republicans to say the public backs them on cuts, but it also justifies spending on programs that are projected to contribute to higher deficits in the years to come.

The likely shutdown overlaps with Biden ramping up next year’s reelection campaign. For the past few months, the president has taken full ownership of the economy’s performance as inflation has dropped while unemployment has stayed low.

But an emerging set of risks are on the horizon and most U.S. adults still feel pessimistic about the country’s direction.

Mortgage rates are at a 22-year high. Oil prices are nearly $91 a barrel, pushing up the cost of gasoline. Unionized autoworkers are likely entering a third week of strikes. Student loan repayments are restarting. Pandemic-related money for child care centers is set to end, potentially triggering a set of closures that could hit working parents.

A government shutdown would be another dose of chaos that could cause pain for millions of households. White House officials who are ready to blame Republicans say they’d rather see a shutdown avoided.

“I’m still hoping,” Young said Friday. “I’m still remaining an optimist.”

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