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.”

Cross Bay Blvd on the verge of collapse

THE CITY 

The cracked and crumbling Cross Bay Boulevard, one of the three paths out of the Rockaways, has been the subject of an outsized share of citizen complaints, according to an analysis by THE CITY. 

The thoroughfare has been a problem for decades, according to frustrated residents of Broad Channel. That’s the neighborhood on an island in Jamaica Bay just north of the Rockaways and south of mainland Queens, with the boulevard running through it and A train tracks immediately to the east.

“If there’s a roadway collapse, or if there’s another hurricane, Broad Channel has nowhere to go and people from the center of Rockaway have no way to get out,” local Community Board 14 Chairperson Dolores Orr told THE CITY.

The asphalt of the boulevard is pocked with deep, visible cracks and depressions, even ten years after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy highlighted the need for resiliency work in the area. These days, locals are renewing the call for a complete rebuild of the roadway — which has been the top item on Community Board 14’s capital project list since 1990, including in the most recent budget draft published in mid-October.

Dan Mundy Sr., 85, a lifelong Broad Channel resident and former president of the neighborhood’s civic association, recalled receiving a call in the early 2000s from a local homeowner upset that her house — just doors down from a concrete drainage tunnel that supports a section of Cross Bay Boulevard — shook when trucks passed it. 

Mundy said he eventually learned the problem stemmed from the installation of new sewers in the 1990s — a project that required digging trenches and hollowing out the concrete base that supports both sides of the boulevard. This, he said, in turn destabilized the tunnel — and the boulevard at large — as solid concrete was replaced by a patchwork remedy. 

Three decades later, trucks, buses and even cars thud loudly as they drive over the cracks formed where the tunnel walls meet the road.

 “It’s an accident waiting to happen,” said Mundy, pointing to the tunnel, which is usually walkable when the tide is low but was flooded by a high tide when THE CITY visited Thursday morning. “When you do go under there, you can really see where the concrete is falling off. The [steel] rebars are all sticking out.”

Mundy pointed to another section along the tunnel — also known as a culvert or “sluiceway” to locals —  where he said a pothole has opened up time and again. From inside the culvert, Munday said he can “almost put my hands up to the street” where the weak spot is.

“They keep coming and they fix it, and it falls apart again,” Mundy told THE CITY. “So it’s just a Band-Aid they’re doing on everything here.”

The cracks and potholes along the culvert are just one symptom of how the sewer installations that gutted the boulevard in the 1990s have, over the years, continued to destabilize the nearly century-old roadway, said Mundy. The boulevard is estimated to carry an average of about 25,000 cars a day.

I'm going to put this here like this because the people at the DOT really need the exposure:

The city transportation department, however, seems unworried. “The Cross Bay Boulevard culvert is structurally sound,” DOT spokesperson Vin Barone told THE CITY after conferring with DEP. “DOT is working with its sister agencies to conduct routine inspections while we continue to explore long-term infrastructure upgrades.”

Sure Vinny, tell Ydanis and your fellow bike zealots there to keep exploring, maybe more paint on the bike lanes will stop the next deluge. 

 

#ScenesOfQueens

Blood on the leaves. Gateway National Park. pic.twitter.com/MTTS8EnHqe

— JQ LLC (@ImpunityCity) October 27, 2022

Ida flood homeowner victims and basement tenants got shafted by Biden

 

 Gothamist

 President Joe Biden and a contingent of federal, state, and local officials toured flood-ravaged sections of Queens earlier this month in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Ida, promising speedy relief to homeowners and renters. Impacted residents were told about the $32,000 maximum payout they could expect to receive to help them recover.

But two weeks later, many are realizing it's far less simple than they were promised.

Officials are now telling residents that funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency aren’t intended to cover all of the damage caused by Ida. Instead many residents are being directed to apply for low-interest loans they’ll eventually have to repay through the U.S. Small Business Administration to defray any costs FEMA won’t cover.

“What the f--k?” said Erika Kasouto, 41, when she was told to apply for a federal loan in one of several calls to FEMA agents. The Woodside home she lives in with her parents took in five feet of water on the ground level. “It’s ridiculous. It’s disheartening.”

Despite assurances from elected officials in the immediate aftermath of the flooding, FEMA representatives have since tried to clarify on their hotline, through email, and at the city’s disaster service centers set up after Ida that grant funding is only intended to cover the essential costs of someone staying in their damaged home.

Several residents from hard-hit areas like Woodside, East Elmhurst, and Hollis told WNYC/Gothamist about similar correspondence with FEMA. And federal officials confirmed as much, adding that homeowners would likely qualify for the maximum $32,000 payout if their home was destroyed. People can qualify for a loan and still receive a FEMA grant, officials said.

THE CITY

 Two weeks after the remnants of Hurricane Ida tore through the city, killing 13 people, basements across the city are still drying out as many New Yorkers struggle to recover from the punishing storm.

With millions of dollars in federal assistance now unlocked for the city, some households that saw rivers of rain and sewage pour in will have a lifeline to begin repairing and rebuilding.

But that help isn’t for everyone.

Left out of Federal Emergency Management Agency aid are undocumented immigrants — many of whom live in the Queens neighborhoods that were pummeled hardest.

“I’ve lived in this country for four years and this is the first time I’ve lived in a basement. I was looking for affordable housing,” Marlén Romero, a 32-year-old Corona resident, told THE CITY in Spanish.

Her home and belongings were drenched as Ida dumped more than seven inches of rain in an hour on parts of the city, flooding her apartment with about two feet of water.

“I had no idea that living in a basement would be so dangerous,” she said.

A native of Mexico, Romero and her husband are both undocumented, which would shut them out of federal disaster assistance. But her family may still qualify for assistance because the couple’s 4-year-old daughter is a U.S. citizen.

“It’s not fair for all of us who are undocumented who don’t have someone ‘legal’ in their households. We live in basements so we can save some money because rent in this city is so expensive. Our income doesn’t stretch that far to get a better home,” she said.

She only learned that there was financial aid available for flooding victims through a local community group, Familias Unidas, when a school social worker mentioned it as her daughter began preschool earlier this week.