MTA Floods Subway Entrance To Test New Waterproof Gate

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — Subway floods aren't only for rainstorms anymore.

The MTA purposefully flooded a Brooklyn subway station on a clear Wednesday afternoon this week to test out a new "flex gate" that could help keep straphangers safe during real floods.

The flooded Broadway G train station was spotted by Twitter user Kaye Blegvad, whose photo of the blocked-off stairwell filled to the brim with water has been seen thousands of times on Twitter.

"MTA explain yourself," Blegvad wrote.

And explain they did, but not without some jokes first.

The transit agency quipped that they are "pivoting to submarines" before revealing that the four-hour flood at the Broadway entrance was actually one of the capital projects the MTA will invest in to prepare for the impacts of climate change.

"But actually, we were testing a new 'flex gate,' which is a flood barrier that would allow us to seal off a subway entrance," the agency said. "We 'test flood' the entrance for four hours to make sure it was installed correctly, which it was! We're doing this because climate change is real."

The Broadway G station was chosen because it has other entrances, meaning the test could be run for four hours while only closing one of multiple stairwells.

The transit officials noted that the capital projects are meant to prevent the billions of dollars of damage that previous natural disasters, like Hurricane Sandy, caused on the public transit system.

The flex gates will only be used during extreme weather, they said.

"These devices are to prevent impacts from storm surge, not the kind of flooding we see during heavy rains. We're also protecting thousands of sidewalk vents (literally)," the agency wrote on Twitter.

But still, some Twitter users had other theories about the intentional flood.

"That’s Bansky‘s latest work - it’s called 'subquarium,'" one Twitter user wrote.