An MTA driver spent three hours trapped in the storm Wednesday night along with passengers after her bus stalled, then flooded in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood as the remnants of Hurricane Ida pummeled the city, she recounted Thursday afternoon.
Evonne Pearson, a three-year MTA veteran, had hoped to maneuver her B60 bus through the deluge on Wilson Avenue near Linden Street after seeing another bus driver get through it shortly after 9:30 p.m., she said.
She wound up stuck there until nearly 1 a.m.
“I had two passengers on the bus. An elderly woman who was in her 80s, she was crying. I was trying to comfort her,” Pearson told The Post.
“At the same time, I was in fear. The water was polluted. There was a bunch of garbage and feces flowing on the bus.”
As water seeped into the vehicle, two of Pearson’s four passengers got off the bus.
“The water was rushing in quick!” Pearson said. “I thought the bus was going to start floating for a while! That really put me in fear and panic.”
Eventually, a third passenger left because he had to get to work, Pearson said. She and the older woman, meanwhile, got as high as they could to avoid being mucked up by the sewage-infested deluge.
“The water came up to our neck. Cars floating. It was unbelievable,” she recalled of the situation on the street outside. “I had to sit on the dashboard because the water was rising up to my driver’s seat.”
Firefighters eventually arrived on the scene — and told Pearson she could either wade through the mucky water or stay put.
The older woman, who did not speak English, reluctantly exited the bus. Firefighters plopped her on a nearby corner with nowhere to go as rain continued to barrel down, said Pearson, who stuck around under the water receded and she could safely exit.
“The Fire Department was really no help. I thought they would take us to safe location where we’d be on ground and not have to walk through all that polluted water,” she said Thursday.
“I just waited it out.”
Leave a Reply