#Leak floods NYC subway station, causing transit chaos

A massive Christmas morning leak on Manhattan’s Upper West Side flooded the MTA’s 81st Street subway station and shutdown multiple train lines, officials said.

Train crews caught the water seeping into the station on ritzy Central Park West at around 9 a.m., the MTA said. The A and D trains are running express in Manhattan and the C train has been suspended entirely as workers clear water and debris from the area, the agency posted on Twitter.

The source of Friday’s leak had yet to be determined, a spokesman for the city Department of Environmental Protection said. City workers had shut off water in the area in order to stop the water and locate its origin.

“New York City transit rapidly responded and is working to remove water from the station as well as perform necessary inspections to tracks, equipment and third rail infrastructure,” interim MTA subways chief Frank Jezycki said in a statement.

“We are working to ensure the area is safe and will reopen the area for customer use as soon as is safely possible.”

The early morning leak marked a return to form for the Central Park West subway line, which saw three similar flooding incidents in the span of a single month last winter. All three of those incidents were attributed to city water main breaks.

It was not clear whether the incident was weather-related, the city said.

“Crews are excavating roadway now,” said the spokesman, Edward Timbers.

“We do not have confirmation on whether it was a water main break, or an issue with private infrastructure.”