Wild weather forces hotel evacuation

(Kips Bay-WABC, April 23, 2006) (WABC) -- The heavy rain Sunday morning caused a flood of problems across the region. One Manhattan hotel's guests were forced to evacuate.

Kemberly Richardson is in Kips Bay with more on that story and the wet weather.

In Midtown, the downpour proved to be a nightmare for the Marcel Hotel. The top floors, which are under renovation and covered with tarps, had water gushing in from above. The water was just too much for the tarps to handle.

Con Ed says water came down heavily on three floors of guest rooms. That forced the utility to cut off power to the entire building. 75 rooms with 300 guests were forced into the street at the height of the storm.

"The building is flooding so we're all being kicked out," said Lesley Menzies, a tourist from Canada. She maintained her good spirits however. "We were rescued by some lovely New York firemen and we're off to a fancier hotel."

A few guests who didn't know about the closure were still showing up to the Marcel Hotel on Sunday morning only to be redirected to other hotels. The entire building is now closed and all the guests are gone. The Red Cross is helping with the relocation of displaced guests.

One of the hotel managers told Eyewitness News that the ground floor restaurant, called Gramercy 24, suffered some damage as well. A significant amount of water actually made it from the roof to the ground floor.

The heavy rainfall also proved driving a dangerous task Sunday morning. The pounding rain quickly turned potholes into lakes. Car wrecks were spotted everywhere. A cab on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway was smashed up and its tires flattened due to the rain.

On the East Side, heavy rains caused flooding that saturated power lines on the ground and sparked manhole fires.

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