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New York City should never have been caught off-guard by the flash floods that killed at least eight residents when the remnants of Hurricane Ida lashed the northeast, elected officials said Thursday.
“It is unacceptable that we did not prepare for Ida with the same rigor that we did for Henri, and that is a failure on the city’s part,” Councilman Francisco Moya (D-Queens).
“No one should have been driving trying to escape the storm or stuck at work because of dangerous flooding, and no one should be at home getting flooded not knowing when the water will stop or what to do, and risk losing their life.”
A National Weather Service spokesperson said there was “aggressive public messaging about the rain and flash floods ahead of time,” including three emergency warnings about flash floods issued by its forecast office in Upton, Long Island.
“There was no question the weather forecast was spot-on,” said Councilman Barry Grodenchik (D-Queens).
“Clearly we’re still dealing with resiliency. It takes forever.”
Councilman Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn) also blasted as “utterly inadequate” the city’s Stormwater Resiliency Plan, released in May, calling it “nowhere near enough” to deal with the runoff from torrential storms.
“We need a much more aggressive and comprehensive approach now, one that doesn’t just rely on more studies and private-sector incentives, but brings the resources, regulatory reform, implementation, and enforcement needed to make change at scale quickly,” said Lander, the Democratic nominee for city comptroller.
At a news conference Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio called Wednesday night’s deadly flooding “a wake-up call,” and added: “We’ve gotten the message.”
But as the storm was bearing down on the Big Apple, de Blasio was appearing live on NBC’s “Peacock” streaming service, where he discussed matters including the COVID-19 pandemic and took several shots at his longtime political rival, disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
In 2019, Comptroller Scott Stringer called on de Blasio to speed up spending on resiliency infrastructure when he released an audit showing that the city had failed to spend $8.1 billion in federal funds to recover from 2012’s Superstorm Sandy.
At the time, City Hall claimed that it was “spending our federal recovery funds faster than the national average.”
Stringer’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for an update on the Sandy recovery spending.
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