By John Tozzi
LIRR riders grappled with up to 45-minute delays across the system, and service on the Port Washington branch, which crosses the borough from Woodside to Little Neck, was suspended entirely from the early morning hours until 2:19 p.m.Some riders waited on the platform at the Bayside station Monday morning even as loudspeakers announced that service on the line was suspended.”It's kind of desolate, but people have been going up and down,” said Bayside resident Debbie Thompson, who was trying to get to her job at a midtown hotel. She had a bag packed and planned to stay overnight if she made it into Manhattan.Crowds packed the lobby of the Jamaica station, where service on the Hempstead line was suspended until noon Monday.At Main Street in Flushing, the LIRR platform was empty as passengers sought to get into the city on jammed No. 7 subway trains harried by delays. Buses continued to run, plowing their way through the slush in the streets.Back in Bayside, a handful of commuters waited in the station house with a mix of frustration and stoicism.”It happens. The weather's the weather,” said Bayside resident Fred Levine, who was trying to get to his apparel manufacturing job in city.One would-be rider entered the station house and gave a look of mortification when she saw the hand-written sign on the ticket window: “Service suspended.””If you need a note for work, I'll give you a note,” Levine told her.Others waited for family to pick them up and drop them at functioning stations. Levine, taking the suspension in stride, walked out and decided to skip work for the day.Across the tracks at Kelly's Car Service, manager Grace Schehr said drivers had been forced to stay off the roads part of the day Sunday, but by Monday morning they were trying to help desperate customers.”The people who have to get where they're going-we're giving them priority,” she said. Cars were dispatched to take young patients to St. Mary's Hospital for Children and elderly to other hospitals or doctor's appointments.In addition, Kelly's kept the light on and the office staffed all night Sunday and offered shelter to anyone who may have been stranded at the station or in downtown Bayside.On Monday morning, Schehr said, one woman who had been stuck in Penn Station all night called to say she would wait as long as necessary for a car to get from Bellerose to Douglaston.”There's people stuck all over the place from that angle,” she said.
