Nearly 250,000 subway riders face the possibility of a commuting nightmare lasting more than a year under one scenario to finally repair Hurricane Sandy damage to one line. Transit reporter Jose Martinez has the story.

L train riders in Brooklyn know what it's like to be cut off from Manhattan; the line's tunnel beneath the East River was shut for 11 days in 2012 because of flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy.

"I need this L train," one rider said at Bedford Avenue. "There's no other way for me."

But the 225,000 riders who use the line daily are looking at what may be an even bigger commuting challenge.

Wednesday, the MTA said it might have to close the 1.4-mile tunnel for more than a year to finally repair all the damage caused by the hurricane, when seven million gallons of saltwater poured into the tube.

"I feel like it would be a major inconvenience to everybody, really," said one man.

Transit officials said they are studying a menu of options from weekend shutdowns — which would stretch out the repairs — to simply closing the tunnel 24/7 in order to complete the job more quickly.

"Ideally, it would be great to get it done faster, sooner rather than later," said Richard Barone, director of Transportation Programs for the Regional Plan Association. "But again, we have to see whether it's possible to do that and actually still serve people that need to get to work every day."

Hurricane Sandy forced a 13-month shutdown of the R train's East River tunnel, and the G train tube linking Brooklyn and Queens was closed for five weeks.

But neither line carries nearly as many people as the L, which has seen soaring ridership because of Brooklyn's population boom.

More recently, the work on tubes impacted by Hurricane Sandy has been carried out on weekends. Currently, work is being done on the 7 train tunnel that links Queens and Manhattan and on the A and C tunnel that runs between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

"They're going to have to evaluate what's feasible as far as what they can do as diverting and carrying folks on other lines, the J and the M," Barone said.

There's no timetable for when the work could start, but L train riders need to brace themselves for an inevitably trickier commute.

"I'd probably make myself a kayak or a canoe, maybe a raft going over the East River," one rider said.