By ELVA RAMIREZ, RICH SCHAPIRO and DON SINGLETON
The great downpour continued for an eighth day yesterday, pushing the city ever closer to a record it could happily live without: the wettest October in history.
The good news was that the end of the wet weather, flooded streets and swollen rivers was finally in sight.
The National Weather Service was forecasting the constant rain would end today. Tomorrow should be partly cloudy and cool, and Monday will be - oh, happy day - "mostly sunny."
Another 1.54 inches of rain fell yesterday, pushing the total for the month to 13.25 inches, just shy of the record of 13.31 for October set in 1903.
Should the rain return later in the month, October could easily wind up No. 1 on the wettest-month-ever list, ahead of September 1882, with 16.85 inches, and April 1983, with 14.01, according to the Weather Service.
As the rain continued yesterday, alternating between drizzles and downpours, damp New Yorkers continued to cope with what had become their daily dose of delayed trains, canceled flights, curbside puddles and flooded basements. Some even had begun to convince themselves that they actually like rain.
"I'm absolutely delighted for the trees and the lawns and parks of the city," said Consuelo Siedel, 72, of Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, who was in the shelter of the Atlantic Ave. subway station in Brooklyn and who said her own lawn had dried out to "a shiny beige color."
Real estate agent William Matias, 31, of Park Slope, Brooklyn, possibly represented a larger group of New Yorkers. "I'm sick of it, of course," he said. "All my shoes are wet. It's just killed the business. I wouldn't take a client out in sneakers."
"It's hell," said sanitation man Rewell Martinez, 44, who was emptying trash cans at Madison Ave. and E. 52nd St. in Manhattan. "When I empty out the cans, cars are going by and splashing water on me. People are hitting me with their umbrellas. It's very uncomfortable."
The Port Authority said the weather caused the cancellation of 91 flights at LaGuardia Airport - 41 departures and 50 arrivals. Arriving flights were delayed up to three hours at LaGuardia and Newark airports and up to 30 minutes at Kennedy.
