About eight million citizens experienced unprecedented situations of New York due to the heavy rains that hit the city and surrounding areas on Friday morning

By Friday night, about 8.65 inches (21.97 centimeters) of rain had fallen at John F. Kennedy Airport, surpassing the record set during Hurricane Donna in 1960, the National Weather Service said.

Meanwhile, all flights to New York’s LaGuardia Airport have been suspended due to heavy rain.

Parts of Brooklyn received more than 7.25 inches (18.41 cm) of rain, with at least one spot recording 2.5 inches (6 cm) in just one hour, according to city officials.

The city’s governor, Kathy Hotchul, declared a state of emergency on Friday.

In that context, he urged New Yorkers to stay home if they can and said state officials were preparing flood rescue teams in Nassau and Westchester counties in case of flash flooding in the suburbs.

Many stations on the city’s subway network were flooded, and some lines were shut down in Brooklyn, such as the G, which connects the borough to Queens.

The water has receded, but the flooding was so bad that a restaurant owner told CBS New York that she had to swim across the street to get to her front door. In the video, citizens can be seen shopping for essentials in a grocery store, while the water reaches their knees.

According to the weather service, the storms are due to a low barometric pressure along the Atlantic coast.

It is noted that a sea lion of the Central Park Zoo in New York, managed to escape, even temporarily due to the severe wave of bad weather that caused huge problems.

Wildlife Conservation Society executive vice president Jim Breheny said the sea lion “was able to swim out of his pool due to flooding from the heavy rains in New York today.”

“Zoo staff monitored the sea lion as it explored the area before returning to the familiar surroundings of the pool and the company of the other two sea lions,” he explained.