New York City was quiet early on Wednesday evening as the remnants of Hurricane Ida barreled toward the Tri-State Area. At 7 p.m., wind and rain had descended on the city, soaking pedestrians and sending rivulets down sidewalks. But the subway system was running, people were out drinking at bars and walking their dogs, and traffic was moving through city streets.

Just two hours later, walking outside meant putting your life in immediate danger. The torrential rain prompted the National Weather Service to issue a flash flood emergency for New York City, its first such warning for NYC ever. Service on every subway line was suspended, and videos from stations across the city showed waterfalls pouring from ceilings and flowing down subway steps. Geysers churned in the middle of subway platforms as cars bobbed like buoys in the streets above.

Some 150,000 customers lost power in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and at least 24 people died in the flash flooding, trapped in their homes or cars. Parts of Central New Jersey clocked 11 inches of rain in less than 24 hours, and a tornado destroyed a neighborhood in South Jersey. Other parts of the region were badly hit as well. At least two tornadoes touched down in Maryland. Some towns in Connecticut got between seven and eight inches of rain.

“Global warming is upon us,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat from New York, said at a press conference on Thursday. “When you get all the changes we have seen in weather, that’s not a coincidence.”

It’ll be some time before climate scientists are able to calculate exactly how climate change affected Hurricane Ida. But climate science supports Schumer’s assertion that the storm system was supercharged by the climate crisis.

Read the full article about Hurricane Ida and holes in climate preparedness by Zoya Teirstein at Grist.