The city will pay you to participate in workshops to control rain

 

Dear Community Leader,
Our city has endured tremendous hardships with the onset of more frequent and intense rainfall
events. In the face of this challenge comes an extraordinary opportunity to rethink its physical
and social infrastructure to reduce the risk from heavy rain while creating benefits for New
Yorkers every day.
 

The Mayor's Office of Climate & Environmental Justice and the NYC Department of
Environmental Protection, with Rebuild by Design and One Architecture and Urbanism, are
launching an open call for individuals and organizations who have lived or professional
expertise to recommend strategies and policies to address the increasing rainfall in New
York City. This work builds on an initiative launched by Rebuild by Design and One Architecture
to Rainproof NYC, as well as the City's efforts to improve flood resilience, including strategies
outlined in “PlaNYC: Getting Sustainability Done.”

Apply here by December 11 to express interest in joining a working group.
 

The Rainproof NYC working groups will have 15-20 members, split between NYC agency staff
and community leaders. The working groups will convene regularly from January 2024 to June
2024 and collaboratively propose new, or expand existing, policies, programs, and projects to
increase New York City’s resilience to heavy rainfall.

Each group will focus on the following topic areas. As part of the application, we ask that you
prioritize which group you would like to take part in:

● WORKING GROUP 1: How can we shift NYC’s policies and priorities to create a
comprehensive plan to prepare for increasing rainfall? Address gaps in infrastructure
and risk management to protect from and prepare New Yorkers for more intense
precipitation.

● WORKING GROUP 2: What does an equitable buyout program look like for NYC?
Inform the development of the City's Housing Mobility & Land Acquisition Program
announced in “PlaNYC: Getting Sustainability Done.”

● WORKING GROUP 3: How can we build capacity among communities, the private
sector, and CBO's to share responsibility to address increased heavy rainfall? Every
drop counts. Build out an education and communications campaign to build the
capacities of communities, the private sector, CBO's, local nonprofits, and other
agencies to do their part in managing increasing heavy rainfall.
We strive for diversity in the composition of each group across lived and professional expertise
and across intersectional identities. If you know someone who will bring new and unique
perspectives to these topics, please encourage them to apply too.

If selected, Rebuild will provide non-government members a stipend of $1500 at the end
of the process to support your high-level commitment. For those who cannot commit but
may want to stay involved, there will be various other opportunities to participate in working
towards a Rainproof NYC. We will continue to keep you apprised of those opportunities, even if
you choose not to apply to participate in a working group.

If you believe you have the expertise and availability to participate in a working group,
please APPLY HERE by noon on December 11, 2023. If you are accepted, you will be
invited to an afternoon half-day kickoff meeting that will be held on January 9, 2023 (please
hold your calendar for that date). Selected working group participants will be notified on or
around December 19.

 If you have any questions, email Rifal Imam at rimam@rebuildbydesign.org.
 

Sincerely,
The Rainproof NYC Steering Committee:
Rebuild by Design
The NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice
NYC Department of Environmental Protection
The NYC Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery Operations
One Architecture and Urbanism

Mayor Adams took his 5% austerity machete to cut budgets from schools, libraries and the FDNY for these workshops to pay people to be make believe city planners to "mitigate" water coming from the sky. Workshops are the biggest farces going on in this town.

Mayor Adams MIA as South Queens floods

What I woke up to outside my house. Reminds me of when I woke up on Sandy. pic.twitter.com/HAM5cQNk7E

— Jonathan Lazo (@JonathanLazoNY) December 23, 2022

  

QNS

Major flooding from Thursday night’s storm has taken over the coast in the southern Queens neighborhoods of Howard Beach, Hamilton Beach, Broad Channel and the Rockaways.

Residents are being asked to move to higher ground for their own safety, according the NYC Emergency Management. 

 "There is major tidal flooding in Howard Beach, Hamilton Beach, Broad Channel and the Rockaways, please move to higher ground,” NYC Emergency Management tweeted out this morning. “Also remember, all it takes is 6 inches of standing water to move a car, never walk or drive through flood waters.”

The National Weather Service in New York has issued a Special Weather Statement for New York City for rapidly falling temperatures, gusty winds and falling wind chills. They also warned about standing water becoming black ice late this afternoon in the early evening hours. Travel is not recommended.

Early this morning, the city said that the ZIP codes affected by Friday’s storm will be 11224,11235, 11414, 11691,11692, 11693, 11694 and 11697. 

AMNY

Mayor Eric Adams’ administration handled the city’s response to flooding in coastal areas of Queens like Broad Channel and the Rockaways while reporters wondered where he was Friday.

The mayor was absent from a Friday afternoon briefing that City Hall officials provided about the storm. According to First Deputy Mayor Lorraine Grillo, Hizzoner was outside of the five boroughs, but in contact with the administration as they coordinated the response.

Grillo, who serves acting mayor when her boss is out of town, said Adams decided to take two days off and “get some rest.” She confirmed the mayor is outside of the five boroughs, but wouldn’t disclose where when pressed by reporters several times.

“I certainly do know where he is,” Grillo said. “But let me just say this to you: he might as well be here because we’ve been speaking to each other constantly throughout the day, and speaking with all of us to keep updated on what’s going on and to actually direct us to do this. But the mayor decided to take two days off and get some rest and instead of course he’s dealing with this, but just not here.”

Grillo was surrounded by a cadre of administration officials including Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives – and future first deputy mayor – Sheena Wright, city Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol, FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh and several others.

Iscol said his agency has been fanned out across the city, along with personnel from other city agencies, throughout the day responding to the damage wrought by the winter storm. The flooding, he said, was caused by a three-foot storm surge exacerbated by the new moon and windy conditions.

“This is a difficult weather event,” Iscol said. “We needed to prepare not only for rain, but also a tidal flooding that was made worse by the new moon in addition to large amounts of wind offshore that was piling water into New York Harbor in addition to Jamaica Bay, adding about three foot above mean tide flood surge.”

Queens grounds are parched

 

 Queens Chronicle

With the borough just recovering from the latest heat wave (and bracing itself for the next one), it may not be difficult to fathom that Queens is in a moderate drought — or at the very least, is approaching one.

The U.S. Drought Monitor says that Queens County is in a moderate drought, and, in parts of southern Queens, a severe one. College Point environmentalist and visiting scientist and faculty member at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution James Cervino characterized it as “the worst ever” in Queens.

That is barely an exaggeration — Matthew Wunsch, a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Chronicle that between June 1 and Aug. 28, the area surrounding JFK Airport received 5.14 inches of rainfall. That’s the area’s second lowest level since 1949 for that period. The area surrounding LaGuardia Airport has gotten 8.09 inches of rainfall over those 12-odd weeks, the 14th lowest since 1940.

But the New York City Department of Environmental Protection has not gone so far as to declare an official drought.

“Things are certainly dry here in New York City. We have not had a lot of rain this summer — the ground is brittle and everything is pretty brown,” said Ted Timbers, the DEP’s communications director. “But New York City gets its water supply from protected reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains in the Hudson Valley.” Those, he said, have an “ample” amount of water in them, adding that the agency is monitoring the supply and the forecast closely.

But as the borough prepares for hurricane season, the first since Hurricane Ida took 11 lives in Queens and damaged countless homes a year ago to the day, the drought may be cause for concern, and may lend itself to flooding.

“You’d think that because the ground is dry, that it can actually absorb more water,” Wunsch said. “But dry ground, it actually becomes less porous, and more likely to have runoff, especially if a lot of heavy rain happens at once.”

Or, as Cervino put it: “Drought leads to cracks, desertification, floods and erosion.”

 

Roof collapse in Astoria

From PIX11:

Crews are on scene after a building partially collapsed in Queens early Wednesday.

Fire officials received a call shortly after 4 a.m. about a partial roof collapse at a mixed occupancy one-story building on 48-15 25th Ave. in Astoria.

Authorities arrived to find the marble business' roof and front exterior wall partially collapsed.

Elderly man's driveway floods whenever it rains

From PIX11:

"I pray when it rains. I say, Lord, I hope you stop the rain. Please don't flood. Help me out," said Gadson, who still preaches at a local church once a month.

PIX11 News reached out to the Department of Transportation and Department of Environmental Protection for answers.

A DEP spokesperson says their "records show that DEP inspected catch basins on that block, as well as on the adjacent blocks, last week, and they were found to be clean and working properly."

A DOT spokesperson said that "a recent roadway inspection revealed a low curb in front of the residence in question. As you may be aware, Section 2904 of the New York City Charter places the responsibility for the repair and maintenance of the sidewalk and driveway area on the property owner. DOT is scheduling a subsequent inspection of the sidewalk and curb to determine next steps."

Crazy storms put us all up shit's creek

From NY Environmental Report:

On August 13th, New York State witnessed the greatest 24-hour rainfall, 13.27 inches, in its recorded history. The state record – last set in 2011 – was broken in West Islip, Long Island, fewer than 30 miles from the Queens border.

A flash flood watch went in effect throughout New York City, and beaches in Brooklyn and Staten Island were closed to swimmers the following day. The heavy rain had overloaded sewer mains, necessitating the release of untreated sewage directly into local waterways.

If the City’s climate scientists are right, New York will steadily become a wetter city, subject to more frequent and intense rainfall – and thus, more overloaded sewers and water-related health risks.

And at the very same time that New York’s climate is shifting, the City is engaged in what will be a decades-long effort to address a long-standing problem: the need to capture stormwater before it overwhelms sewers and treatment plants, triggering the release of untreated sewage into Jamaica Bay, the Bronx River, and other waterways.

Lindenwood inundated with floodwater

From PIX11:

What’s causing sewers in this neighborhood to back up into streets, driveways and garages every time it rains?

It’s a question that city engineers try to figure out, while they carry out maintenance work on the sewage system. Its performance during this week’s record rains underscored just how severe the problem is.

On street after street, for about twenty square blocks, every house has almost all of its basement, garage and, in some cases, its first floor belongings sitting out on the curb, awaiting trash pickup after the rising sewer water ruined them.

While the two straight days of rain this week are part of the reason for the damage, the other part, residents told PIX11 News, is the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, which operates sewers.

“In this part of the neighborhood,” resident Lou Mastrangelo said, “the sewer system couldn’t handle the volume of water.”

Nearby neighbor Anthony Feller seconded that assessment. “All the sewers here were backed up, and after hurricane Sandy, they were never cleaned out,” he said. “Is that the answer? I don’t know.”

The DEP doesn’t exactly seem to know either. Its spokesperson told PIX11 News that the department had engineers looking at the situation. Lindenwood is not considered by most insurance companies to be in a flood zone, and even after Sandy, the homes that flooded in the neighborhood did not see water nearly as high as that which rose during Wednesday night’s rainstorm.

DEP had work crews out in the neighborhood on Friday, working in sewers and draining remaining storm water from streets. The department also sent staff members out into the neighborhood, offering residents claim forms to fill out to try and get reimbursed for their losses. Despite those efforts, however, nobody from the DEP would comment on the record about the overall flooding problem.

Stop paving over your lawns. Problem solved.

Arthur Ashe stadium to get a roof

From CBS New York:

After years of U.S. Open weather woes, the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens is ready to serve up some major changes.

As CBS 2’s Tony Aiello reported Wednesday, engineers have finally figured out how to mount a retractable roof over Arthur Ashe Stadium – the main venue for the U.S. Open. It is considered an overhead smash against Mother Nature.

For the last five years, rain has pushed the U.S. Open final from Sunday to Monday.

“The players are very upset about the finals’ being postponed to Monday. They have Davis Cup the next week — that’s interfered there. The fans are unhappy,” said Dan Kaplan of SportsBusinessDaily.com.

The obvious solution is to design and build a retractable roof over center court, but as recently as last summer the United States Tennis Association said putting a roof over Arthur Ashe Stadium was an engineering impossibility and couldn’t be done.

The USTA said the stadium was built on swampland and could sink under the weight of a roof. But Kaplan said the organization has figured out a fix.

“What they’re planning to do is rip out a lot of the very heavy seating in the upper decks,” he said. “That will reduce the weight.

Since they can put a roof on it, why not make it permanent so that the community doesn't have to deal with the noise from re-routed planes?

Heavy rain causes wall collapse

From Eyewitness News:

Dozens of people had to be evacuated Saturday morning when a retaining wall collapsed in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan.

The residents were evacuated from an apartment building on Cabrini Avenue, after the collapse at a building behind it on Pinehurst Avenue.

The building manager says a fire escape was ripped off a wall of the apartment building.

About 100 residents were displaced by the 4 a.m. collapse, which affected 35 apartments in all that face the rear courtyard.

It is still unclear when they will be allowed back into their building.

Glendale flooding cause is no mystery

From the Daily News:

City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village) is calling for an investigation into what caused what she and residents said was the worst flooding in the area in recent memory.

We really need to investigate this? The answer is a lot of rain and shitty infrastructure, which has been the same story now for several years.

Next.

Better keep a boat handy

From Eyewitness News:

A house in Fresh Meadows is covered in dirt and grime. The water line is about 3.5 feet high all the way around the kitchen, and the refrigerator is tipped over.

From the driveway, you can see just how it happened.

The water made its way down and instantly filled up the house. However, it is not just homeowners who experienced the sudden rainfall. Mid-afternoon drivers were also caught off guard. Flash flooding on the Grand Central Parkway near Union Turnpike forced drivers to brave the deep waters.

Eventually drivers gave up and came to a virtual standstill.

Police directed people to turn around and head back the other way.

32nd Avenue floods because of bad paving

"So - as predicted, we got flooded today on 32nd Avenue because of the poor paving job. This was just a light rain...imagine what's going to happen when we get some serious downpours."

Know where this was?

From Ephemeral New York:

Martin Lewis’ drypoint print, “Rainy Day, Queens,” captures light behind cloudy skies and in slick sidewalk puddles on a grim city day.

Does anyone have an idea where this is?

Rain a headache in Springfield Gardens

From NY1:

Every time there’s heavy rainfall, homeowners on one block in Jamaica, Queens struggle with massive flooding.

“I've replaced my refrigerator four times. I've replaced my dryer four times. I've replaced my freezer four times,” says resident Allison Monroe.

The problems aren’t purely to do with appliances, however.

“We're talking about not just water, we're talking about feces backing up, we're talking about garbage. We're talking about water coming through our tubs, water coming through our toilets,” says resident Kim Lawton.

Residents say the furious flooding that fills their basements with water is the result of poor drainage and runoff from a federal aviation building next door.

The residents, who claim insurance won't cover them, say the city needs to put more drains in the street.

NY1 called the Department of Environmental Protection and a spokesman said this area is prone to flooding because of the low-lying topography.

The spokesman went on to say DEP has already done extensive sewer upgrades in Springfield Gardens and that the agency is planning to study the feasibility of resolving the persistent flooding issues in this area.

When we asked for a timeframe, however, the spokesman said they have none.

Record rainfall across City

From Eyewitness News:

In Queens, JFK is reporting a record: the most rain it has ever had in a single day.

7.50 inches of rain and counting as of 4:30 p.m.

But the rain is certainly not contained to the airport.

On 147th Avenue and 235th Street, water from a flooded pond at Brookville Park is almost over the bridge.

The flooding is so significant that cars are stalled out and drivers are thinking twice about even getting behind the wheel.

In Middle Village, Queens, there is flooding on Metropolitan Avenue near Cooper Avenue.

The floodwater reached halfway up car tires.

So drivers had to slow down to clear the flooded area.


From NBC:

Investigators are looking into a roof collapse at a Williamsburg business Sunday.

No one was hurt in the incident, which occurred in the overnight hours at the Mr. Dollar store at 169 Graham Ave.

It wasn't clear whether the heavy rain played a role in the roof collapse, though the water was still coming in steadily through the opening of the roof as the day went on.

Merchandise from inside the store were littered across the front of the store, including soda bottles and detergent bottles.

What happens when you build cheap

From WG News:

Great fanfare accompanied the groundbreaking of Northside Piers/Palmers Dock on July 13, 2006, with the attendance of some of the city’s top brass, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Deputy Mayor for Economic Development & Rebuilding Daniel L. Doctoroff, State Assemblyman Vito Lopez, former Department of Housing Preservation & Development Commissioner Shaun Donovan, Department of City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, Department of Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe, and Toll Brothers Division Vice President David Von Spreckelsen. Von Spreckelsen was quoted as saying at the event, “We are thrilled with the opportunity to participate in the revitalization of the northern Brooklyn waterfront made possible by the hard work of the Bloomberg administration in accomplishing this important re-zoning.”

Some units have had water infiltration which has resulted in the untenable condition of mold growth. In addition, many owners complained that the full-view windows that were installed, do little to keep wind and water out of their units which increases use of heat in the winter, and air conditioning in the summer, both of which run on electricity. This certainly makes our friends at Con Edison very happy, as I was shown the electricity bills for many residents averaging over $400 dollars a month.

Many owners are claiming that the hardwood floors that were supposed to be in the units, are actually cheap engineered wood that scratches and warps easily.

Another owner wrote that a unit has repeatedly flooded with sewage in their home causing mold to develop in their and the adjoining unit. Owners also stated that the exterior of the building is a danger because of exterior metal cladding falling off the building.

Cops really going overboard

From the Village Voice:

Earlier today, right around the time that the City Council was holding a hearing on the NYPD's controversial stop and frisk practices, cops slapped a Brooklyn man with a trespassing charge for standing under an awning to get out of the rain.

Vincent Mouzon, a 55-year-old telephone pollster who lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, tells the Voice he was on his way back to a local laundromat after mailing three letters when he paused under an awning outside an abandoned building on Malcolm X Boulevard.

When the rain abated, Mouzon resumed walking. About a block later, police officers from the 81st Precinct stopped and questioned him. The 81st Precinct, by the way, is the same station house that was the subject of the Village Voice's widely read NYPD Tapes series.

"I showed them my identification and explained what I was doing," he says. "I even opened the laundry bag for them."

Mouzon says he told the officers that the ticket would be thrown out of court. "I told them, 'look I know about you guys, I read the Village Voice article, and I know your precinct, and I know you guys are trying to make your quota,'" he says.

"Here's a guy who was absolutely doing nothing, and now I have to go to criminal court and take a day off of work to deal with it," he says. "I was just standing there seeking refuge, and it boggles my mind that this could happen. This doesn't inspire trust in the Police Department. It's such a waste of time and taxpayer's money."