In New York City, subway service started back up yesterday after Hurricane Sunday flooded seven East River subway tunnels and sent the Metropolitan Transit Authority scrambling inspect hundreds of miles of track along the 108-year-old subway system. But many of the flooded tunnels, which run from downtown Brooklyn through lower Manhattan, remain out of commission, and the power outage in lower Manhattan has stopped service in the borough’s lower half, even across the city’s bridges. On Wednesday, Mayor Bloomberg said it would be unlikely that service was fully restored by the weekend.

Regardless of whether Sandy can be linked directly to climate change, it was the type of extreme weather event that will only become more intense as the planet warms. Old or new, few electricity grids, public transit systems, bridges, roads, or communications networks were built to withstand these challenges. But despite the flooding that occurred during Sandy, this isn’t necessarily one of those stories where officials saw warning signs and did nothing. Since 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, disaster preparedness experts in New York and elsewhere have begun to embrace push the idea of “resilience”—building infrastructure that can weather such storms and setting in place support systems that allow public utilities to recover quickly from damage. Although New York’s public transit system may not be up and running at full capacity quite yet, the city’s response is a good example of how officials are starting to change their thinking about risks like extreme weather and how to respond to them.