NYCHA IS HOME OF THE FREEZE
Agency blames winter gas goof
Around 3,000 public-housing residents in Queens were forced to ride out Thursday’s blizzard in units with little or no heat, prompting some to risk carbon-monoxide poisoning by cranking up ovens and stoves.
Speaking just days after he was sworn in to his second, four-year term, Mayor de Blasio blamed “decades” of neglect for the latest suffering inflicted on hapless tenants of the New York City Housing Authority.
A NYCHA spokeswoman said the authority was told of radiators going cold at the 20-building Woodside Houses complex at around 11:15 a.m. Thursday.
The heating crisis came a little less than two months after the city’s Department of Investigation revealed that NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye admittedly falsified a report to the feds claiming 55,000 potentially lead-tainted apartments had been inspected for hazards.
NYCHA spokeswoman Jasmine Blake said Thursday’s problem was caused by a drop in the pressure of natural gas supplied to the complex’s steam boilers by the National Grid utility company.
Blake said NYCHA maintenance workers adjusted valves to provide some heat to the lower three floors of the sixstory buildings, and a National Grid spokesman said it restored full pressure in the gas line at around 1:30 p.m.
The heat was back on in all 1,300 apartments at around 5 p.m., NYCHA said.
Blake’s account of when the heat problem began conflicted with an emergency notice her own agency posted.
The notice, dated Tuesday, said there would be “LOW OR NO HEAT PRESSURE” all day in every building.
“CON ED SHUT DOWN 2 OF 6 BOILERS DUE TO NEEDED REPAIRS. PLUMBERS ARE CURRENTLY HERE MAKING REPAIRS. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE,” it added.
Resident Gonzalo Rivera, who lives with his wife and two grown kids, said he resorted to other ways to heat his home.
“It’s the third day we haven’t had heat in the whole building,” said Rivera, 41. “What we do is, we turn on the oven and leave the oven door open, to get the heat that way.”
Another resident said his apartment had “been freezing since before Christmas.”
“I can’t feel my fingers and toes,” said Juan Melendez, 44.
“I’ve got every blanket I own, plus two sweat shirts and two T-shirts and I’m still not warm. It’s f- -king arctic in here.”
An online list of “current outages” also showed repairs to heat and hot-water systems “in progress” at seven other NY- CHA buildings scattered across Manhattan and The Bronx.
The number of heat and hotwater complaints made by NYCHA residents to Public Advocate Letitia James since Dec. 1 has more than doubled, from 11 to 24, compared with the same time period a year before.
James demanded NYCHA make repairs and “open heating centers to provide a temporary refuge for residents.”
De Blasio said: “The challenge in our public housing buildings is that these are older buildings that honestly for decades did not get the kind of investment and maintenance they deserve.”