'Life threatening' New York rains make Sally the Sea Lion to make brief escape

A female sea lion named Sally made a brief escape from her enclosure at the Central Park Zoo after heavy rains inundated New York City, leading to flooding on the zoo grounds.

Zoo workers closely monitored Sally as she ventured around the area near her enclosure before eventually rejoining the other two sea lions in the pool, New York Times reported.

By the late afternoon, the floodwaters at the zoo had receded, and all animals were safely contained in their enclosures.

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During the storm, no zoo staff members were in danger, and the city's four zoos were closed to allow employees to focus on ensuring the animals' safety.

"When we arrived at the Arsenal, everything was quite flooded. We watched Sally explore the area around her enclosure and then return," Karen Dugan an employee at New York's park department was quoted as saying by New York Times. Dugan and her colleagues at the city's parks department had an unusual view of the wandering sea lion from their third-floor offices in the Arsenal, a building within the park overlooking the zoo.

Downpour in New York City

Torrential downpours after a week of mostly steady rainfall brought flash flooding to New York City on September 29, disrupting subway service, inundating ground-level apartments and turning some streets into small lakes.

Almost eight inches (20 cm) of rain fell in some parts of the most populous city in the US, enough to enable a sea lion at Central Park Zoo to swim briefly out of the confines of her pool enclosure.

Also watch |New York: Heavy rain floods streets, strands car; emergency announced

Another few inches could fall in the region before the storm system pushed out to sea later on Friday, forecasters said, Reuters reported.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul warned of "life-threatening" floods and declared a state of emergency for New York City, Long Island, and the Hudson Valley.

Flooding caused major disruptions to New York's subway system and the Metro North commuter rail service, Metropolitan Transportation Agency, which operates both the services, said.

Some subway lines were closed completely for the public, and many stations were closed. Some bus routes slowed to a crawl, trapping riders for hours. Officials warned some New Yorkers to avoid traveling unless they were fleeing a flooded area.

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