Transcript: Mayor Adams Announces Next Generation of New York City's Investments in Flood Prevention and Preparation to Keep New Yorkers Safe, Protect Their Wallets

September 9, 2024

Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, Operations: Good morning, thank you everyone for coming. The anniversary of Hurricane Ida is a solemn occasion. We mourn the lives of those lost across the region, but it's also a time of conviction, a time of planning, a time of rolling up our sleeves and getting the work done to protect New Yorkers for an era of fast and furious rainfall.

We must be, and we are being, skillful and creative in how we protect our city. Every square foot of our city, from our basketball courts to our public parks, our highway medians, and yes, even the very pavement we stand on, must do double duty to protect homes and businesses around them. The reality is that our sewer system was built at the turn of the 20th century, and it's done the lion's work, a true feat of genius and engineering that has sustained New York through growth that no one could have predicted. It manages 2.7 billion gallons of water, or about 4,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. But still, that's not enough.

The number represents about 1.75 inches of rain per hour, what used to be called the five-year storm. Now it's more like the several-times-a-year storm. Ophelia dumped over two inches per hour on our city, which meant flooded basements and inundated subways. During Ida, parts of the city got 3.5, almost twice what our system is built to handle. And while we complete crucial sewer and catch basin upgrades in our neighborhoods impacted by that terrible storm, we must think innovatively and turn New York City into a sponge to back up our sewer system and soak up the rainwater. Here to talk about our administration's efforts to protect New Yorkers creatively and with conviction, our mayor, Eric Adams. Thank you.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you to our entire team, Deputy Mayor Joshi and Rick. That's all you guys think about, is making sure that we're able to just secure our communities from the onslaught of these unpredictable weather patterns that we're seeing.

Since day one, that's what this administration has made clear. Our mission is to keep New Yorkers safe, and this is one of the most imperative parts of keeping New Yorkers safe, especially New Yorkers who simply cannot afford to move or rebuild every time extreme rainfalls, floods, low-lying areas and basement apartments. It is extremely expensive and impactful on these families, and when you think about it three years ago, when Hurricane Ida caused the heaviest rainfall in New York City recorded history and tragically claimed the lives of 13 New Yorkers, it was clearly a wake-up call for us all.

Our administration is working across all agencies, as you see here today, the different agencies that are present to make sure that we do everything possible to prevent the loss of lives due to extreme weather. That means doing everything we can, and we are doing that. When climate change causes stronger storms and more frequent extreme weather, investments like these are a key part of public safety and affordability and our strategies.

Investing in flood infrastructure saves lives and prevents property damage, particularly in low-lying, underserved areas. So every dollar we spend on flood infrastructure, we save $7 in prevented damage. That is why we are investing billions of dollars in expanded infrastructure technology and safety measures, ranging from sewer upgrade to coastal resilience projects to innovate green infrastructure solutions that will divert, absorb and manage tens of millions of gallons of excess stormwater. That sounds like my beat I like. That includes new drainage infrastructure right here in Queens Village.

A year ago today, these medians were concrete. They funneled millions of gallons of water into our sewers, and when our sewers could not handle it, that water ended up flooding basements and streets. Today, the green infrastructure can prevent 5 million gallons of flooding. I'm also proud that we have completed two major projects in the frequently flooded Queens community of Maspeth and College Point. Projects that have added miles of new sewers to water mains and catch bases in our city's infrastructure.

The work is expanding the system drainage capacity to help manage where extreme rainfall exists, including heavy downpours that can put lives in danger, damage property, disrupt critical infrastructure and pollute New York's waterways. In addition, we have broken ground on our first major Cloudburst management project at the New York City Housing Authority, South Jamaica Housing, and we're really excited about this. And work is underway on additional projects in Parkchester, Morris Park, and in the Bronx, East New York, in Brooklyn, St. Albans, in Queens and more. We have expanded the successful Blueelt waterways network that protects so much of Staten Island and invested in new technology that will help New Yorkers in case of emergency.

This week, the city installed a 200-foot flood net sensor in Louis-Simeone Park in Corona, putting us ahead of the schedule to install 500 sensors in flood-prone areas by 2027. We have moved forward with a clear focus, and we're going to continue to ensure that we provide a safe battle against the inclement weather. No one does it better, no one better. I want to turn over to the teams that have continued to fight to make this happen. But again, deputy mayor, we want to thank you for what you have done, and our partners in Albany, Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar, Assemblyman [David] Weprin, and our other partners that are here. Turning back over to you, D.M.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you. Now we're going to hear from a man who has been working since day one to be creative in not just how we absorb water, but how we pay for absorbing water as well, because that is a challenge.

I also want to note that DDC is here as well. DDC is our amazing construction company, the personal construction company of the city, and they're behind so many of our resiliency projects. And because of the tireless advocacy in Albany last session, once Governor Hochul signs our capital reform bills, we will be able to build even faster. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Rit Aggarwala.

Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala, Department of Environmental Protection: Thank you, deputy mayor. Just to build on what the mayor and deputy mayor said, I am really proud of how far we've come over the last two years.

Two years ago, on that first anniversary of Ida, the mayor announced at an event we did together, that DEP and its partner agencies like DDC and the Mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice were going to undertake a comprehensive, multifaceted effort to bring stormwater resilience to the city. The reality, as you all know, is that our climate is changing faster than our infrastructure can keep up. And as a result, we are constantly playing catch-up, but we do so with the support of a tremendous team. Many of my colleagues from DEP are here today, and they work tirelessly on this on any number of fronts.

The plan we said we were going to do two years ago included a number of components, and the mayor touched on some of them. Maintaining our existing infrastructure so it can capture every gallon that it was designed for, improving our ability to understand what was going on during flooding events, increasing that sewer capacity underground, expanding our green infrastructure on the surface, and helping residents cope, because we know there's going to be a time lag between how long it will take for us to upgrade our infrastructure and the flooding that people have to experience. And today, this package that we are announcing of the things that we have accomplished just recently-and as the mayor said, it's a subcomponent of what we've done over the last two years-demonstrates that we're moving forward on all of those fronts.

Last year, we cleaned roughly one-tenth of the entire sewer system. That doesn't expand capacity, but it makes sure that we are getting every ounce of value out of the system that we have, and we'll do just as much again today. As the mayor said, we've accelerated the deployment of these flood net sensors, so we now have 200 of these around the city. It's available to the public. Any person anywhere can log onto the internet and have a real-time understanding of where there is flooding going on at those 200 locations. And one of the things we did in this administration was, originally, there was a plan to roll out these 500 in something like six years, and we have accelerated it. So we will be ahead of schedule with the full rollout of 500 of these sensors.

As the mayor said, we've been aggressively working to expand sewers where we can. That is the longest and most expensive effort. But just to put a fine point, these projects in Maspeth and College Point totaled a $238 million investment by this administration in protecting New Yorkers from flooding. We've broken ground, as the mayor said, on our first Cloudburst project. And what's over here is the package that we give away.

This is the package, and Meera came with one of them, right, that we give away now to homeowners at a series of events that we've been holding all over the city to help them understand the kinds of things that they can do to protect themselves against flooding. It includes the flood barrier there, a sump pump, a flooding alarm, because, as we know, three years ago, many of the people who died during Hurricane Ida did so because they were in basement apartments and the flooding happened. So we think everybody, particularly in a basement apartment, needs to have a flood sensor, just like everybody needs to have a fire alarm at home.

We are delivering on all the things we said we were going to do. We are also aggressively seeking funding. And as the deputy mayor mentioned, one of the things that Mayor Adams and Deputy Mayor Joshi charged us with, collectively across the administration, is to get every dollar of federal money that we can possibly get. And I'm really pleased to say that when we apply directly to the federal government, they treat us very well. They appreciate the importance of these projects. We have received $124 million for Cloudburst projects in New York from the bipartisan infrastructure law, and we are awaiting final approval, but we've been told we're in that final stretch on another $100 million. So that's a quarter billion dollars that this administration has gotten from the bipartisan infrastructure law for the Cloudburst projects alone.

So it's a comprehensive effort. We couldn't do it without our partners like Tom Foley's DDC, the great leadership that we've got at DEP, like Anastasios Georgelis, and where's Angela, Angela Licata, our two deputy commissioners who oversee this, and the team of engineers and maintainers who design and build this. And they are hard at work because the other thing that we promised we would do two years ago, and it will be a multi-year effort, is a comprehensive engineering strategy for how we deliver citywide flood resilience. We issued our first public update on that earlier this year. It's going to take several more years of engineers, but we have 75 engineers working day in and day out to plan that. So it is an all-hands effort, and I want to thank deputy mayor and Mayor Adams for your constant support on this.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you. Boy, everybody's piled stuff on this podium. As the mayor mentioned, we couldn't do any of this without the support of our electeds, especially those at the state level. So next I'd like to bring on Assemblymember David Weprin.

State Assemblymember David Weprin: Thank you, deputy mayor. Thank you, mayor. We don't often get mayors in our district, and this part of Queens has traditionally been neglected, but certainly this type of money coming here is very well appreciated.

As was mentioned, we're marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Ida. The consequences for so many residents in Queens, which cost the lives of 13 New Yorkers. I joined Mayor Adams two years ago when he announced a suite of stormwater infrastructure initiatives to make New York City more resilient to intense rainfall. And I'm pleased to have joined the DEP at a local town hall earlier this year to see how these efforts are being communicated to everyday New Yorkers.

I'm proud that the mayor has invested a historic $1.2 billion in vital anti-stormwater flooding, public safety infrastructure in all five boroughs, ranging from traditional sewer upgrades to innovative green infrastructure solutions and more. And similar investments in anti-flooding infrastructure have been shown to prevent seven times as much damage as compared to the original investment.

As the chair of the New York State Assembly Committee on Insurance, I've been working to find ways to keep property insurance rates down. Just last year, I hosted a public hearing to discuss the impact of severe weather events on policyholders. I will continue to implement and boost solutions for New Yorkers to offset the negative impacts of climate change related to severe weather events like Ida.

Mayor Adams today celebrated milestones in five of these major public safety projects. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection and New York City Department of Design and Construction completed major sewer upgrades at triple drainage capacity in College Points and doubled it in Maspeth, preventing that water from putting New Yorkers in danger of causing property damage. The city also this week installed its 200th flood sensor in Corona, Queens, putting the administration on track to reach Mayor Adams' target of 500 flood sensors and well ahead of schedule.

Additionally, the city broke ground on the first cloudburst project at the New York City Housing Authority's South Jamaica houses, which will keep nearly 3.5 million gallons of stormwater out of the sewer system each year. Finally, DEP completed a transformation of three acres of concrete medians in Queens Village, right here, into subsurface drainage chambers, engineered rock and soil, ornamental grasses and perennial wildflowers that can collectively manage 5 million gallons of stormwater that would otherwise continue to contribute to flooding. Once again, I want to thank Mayor Adams for all his investments in Queens, which in the past has often been neglected.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you very much, assemblymember. And I do want to just comment, we've used the word cloudburst a few times for those who aren't familiar with the term and, you know, it is sort of a term of art, so lots of people aren't familiar with it.

It's basically when we take something like a playground or a basketball court, we make it a little bit deeper and we allow for it to hold water when there is a big storm. And then once the storm passes, the water can dissipate. And that way we don't overburden our sewer system. So it's the way our recreational facilities can also do double duty. It's a really important technique. It's a word used internationally, and we're really excited to bring it to New York with a groundbreaking at the NYCHA houses, I think happening right now or imminently.

I'd like to next bring up Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar, who has been a stalwart advocate in the state for all of the construction work that New York City does.

State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar: It's always a good day when the mayor comes to Queens. The climate crisis is a reality, and it is our responsibility as citizens and government leaders to address it. And we have to win the war against climate change, and we have to win it fast. The past eight years were the hottest years on record. And the year 2023 was officially declared the hottest year in history.

We're seeing the impacts, stronger storms, bigger downpours, more destructive floods. And by the end of the century, the 20 percent of our city that lies in a floodplain may actually be threatened by the rising sea levels. As was mentioned, three years ago Hurricane Ida took the lives of 13 New Yorkers. Most of them were immigrant New Yorkers from Queens who were trapped in basement apartments that flooded dangerously. This shows the toll of flooding on low-income immigrant communities, and it shows just how much climate justice and racial justice are interlinked.

The Adams administration has responded, investing in resiliency and in our diverse communities here in Queens. They have installed hundreds of flood sensors in Corona, broke ground on the first cloudburst project at South Jamaica Houses, and implemented a historic greening of Queens Village. I applaud these flood prevention initiatives, which will save lives here in Queens and around the city, including, hopefully, the 100,000 New Yorkers that live in basement apartments. This is government rising to the climate challenge, and it's a life-or-death matter.

I also want to highlight how today's green infrastructure investments are a good, common-sense use of our taxpayer dollars. Every $1 that we invest in flood hazard mitigation saves $7 in recovery costs. This is enormous savings for our city. The accidental city will never be a sustainable city. There must be thoughtful, deliberate planning and control to get to the true sustainability that we need, and that's what we see here today with this team's thoughtful and deliberative resiliency upgrades. So thank you to everyone here for all of your hard work to meet the climate challenge and to serve the people of Queens.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you very much. Next we're going to hear from someone who will truly feel on a day-to-day basis the impact of this new greening of the Meridian. It is Kirby Lindell, vice president of Bell ParkManor Terrace. But before you speak, Kirby, we'd like to, if you could present, Kirby - this has a market value of about $300, this package - present you with your own flood prevention kit, sump pump, flood protectors, alarms. Enjoy. Hopefully, you don't have to use it too often, but if you do, it's there.

Kirby Lindell: Hi, it's nice to see everyone. I didn't expect to speak, but I am the vice president. I have been living in this community since I was three years old, so 1958. So I've seen everything that's gone on with this mall. And in fact, sometimes we've had boats by Martin Van Buren when the flooding has gotten worse. But so far, since they put this in, the flooding has been great over there.

I am the vice president of this Bell Park Manor Terrace, 850 families on 47 acres of land. And we are very happy that we're getting attention. We really do need attention here. And hopefully, this beautiful project will get a little bit more lush, and it'll continue to be a beautiful sight. Anyway, we're very grateful to have the mayor here. We don't usually get to see the mayor. I've met you before when you were borough president. Anyway, so thank you so much, and we hope that we continue to get some attention in this area of Forgotten Queens. We desperately need attention here.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. A few on-topics.

Question: I have an on-topic question, maybe for Commissioner Aggarwala. You talked about everyone in a basement apartment should have one of these alarms. But part of the problem has been since Ida, the city has not had an accurate catalog of how many basement apartments there are. Do you have a current estimate of how many basement apartments there are in New York City? And if so, would you be making this type of package available to every single one?

Commissioner Aggarwala: So as you know last year, we finally succeeded in some successful legislation in Albany thatwould take the first step that would enable some standards to be developed for a subset of basement apartments around the city. We're going to be working through that. The DEP and the Mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice are coordinating with HPD and our fellow agencies in how we think about the standards for legalization.

I can't make a commitment that we're giving these away to every one of those. We do not give away smoke detectors, for example. It's just one of the things that's a necessary safety feature. But it is something that we recommend that every basement ought to have one.

Question: Mayor Adams, hello, good afternoon. Reflect on how meaningful this equipment is in this moment in light of the devastation of Hurricane Ida. There were 13 people who died. We obviously, it was more than any of us obviously would have expected, and obviously this would have been life-saving to the 13 people who passed away, but what are your thoughts as we're going into another anniversary of Hurricane Ida and what this progress has been made in this equipment that's kind of redistributed? If you could just reflect on that.

Mayor Adams: I know, so true, and I remember with the former mayor going to some of the locations where people lost their lives and buildings were actually eroded because of the large amount of water. And the equipment, as the commissioner stated, we won't be able to give it to every family but making people aware of what items they should have, particularly the sensors in the basement, having that sump pump. All of those items are important, and by sprinkling them out throughout communities they will become aware from their neighbors.

So this is really an each one, teach one, and show one moment so that we can empower communities to be part of what items should we be getting from those hardware stores and those other large stores where you can get these types of supplies. But it was devastating for all of us. It was unimaginable to lose 13 people from heavy rainfall. And it was really, we were already doing some great things under the previous administration, but we realized that we had to move at a faster pace because, as the Deputy Mayor Joshi stated, it was just coming so infrequently, just over and over again, so frequently I should say, and we had to be prepared for that.

Question: It may have been said earlier in the press conference, so I apologize, but what's the funding source for this, just the regular city budget, or any, you know, the infrastructure dollars in addition to the budget?

Commissioner Aggarwala: So for the giveaway kits, or in general?

Question: In general, yes.

Commissioner Aggarwala: Okay, so DEP, we have a roughly $30 billion 10-year capital plan, and a little less than one-third of that is for sewer investments, and so that is where, for example, the Maspeth and College Point money came from. We have some money in our capital budget for the cloudburst projects, but as I said earlier, under the mayor and deputy mayor's leadership, we've made this concerted effort to stretch that money with federal grants.

And so basically, we're able to recycle the money, so we had enough money in the budget for five. If we can get five of them funded by the feds, that means we get to do 10, right? And that's how we're trying to stretch the money. But most of this really comes out of the capital budget that New Yorkers pay for through their water bill.

Mayor Adams: Okay, so we can excuse everyone else. They don't have to be part of this. Thank you, everyone.

Question: Mayor, I wonder if we could talk about another kind of hurricane, a hurricane of rumors that the police commissioner giving this investigation that's been going on is about to resign. Do you think he should resign? If you don't, if you still have faith in him, and if you can guarantee that two months from now, he'll still be your police commissioner?

Mayor Adams: You know, I don't think anything in life is guaranteed. I would say this, when I chose Eddie, I chose him for his experience and what he brought after 30-something years of service. And so, you know, rumors are always out there, Marcia. You can never keep up with the rumors that you hear. It was nothing that came from me that fed those rumors at all. We have a job to do to continue to keep the city safe. We've done an amazing job in doing that, and we're going to continue to make sure this remains the safest big city in America.

Question: We hear about this ongoing investigation in the Police Department that seems to expand every single day, where questions are being asked of your deputy mayor for Public Safety, questions are being asked by other people in the Police Department, including the brother of the police commissioner, and questions about [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: There's no joy waking up and seeing any negative comments made about you in writing or anywhere, so there's no joy. But we have a job to do. And in the name of the game, I say over and over again, stay focused, no distractions and grind. Folks, I've got to bounce.

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