Officials say Ida’s deadly toll points to infrastructure flaws
Deadly flooding delivered to the Northeast by the torrential rains of what remained of Hurricane Ida has brought a new urgency and a fresh look to how roads, sewers, bridges and other infrastructure must be improved to prevent such a catastrophe from happening again.
The world is changing and “our whole mindset, the playbook that we use,” must change too, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said last week as he toured Mullica Hills, New Jersey, where a 150-mph tornado splintered homes. “We have got to leap forward and get out ahead of this.”
The devastation exposed flaws in preparation plans even after New Jersey and New York spent billions of dollars to prevent a reoccurrence of Superstorm Sandy’s destruction in 2012, with much spent to protect coastal communities.
“Flash floods are now coming. It’s not waves off the ocean or the sound,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said soon after last week’s storm swept through.
Hochul and Murphy, both Democrats, agreed that the increasing frequency and intensity of storms demand a new approach that factors in flash floods.
The storm dumped so much rain so fast that a record 3 inches fell in an hour Wednesday in New York, overwhelming drainage systems. Some lives were lost when water flooded basement apartments, subway stations and vehicles. At least 50 people died in five northeastern states.
“People drowning in their basement apartments, in cars and so on is not something we typically would ever see in New York,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University.
To weaken effects of future storms, New York and other areas can learn from other cities like Singapore, Copenhagen and Amsterdam, where solutions included turning asphalt parking lots and schoolyards into spaces that can retain water, said Amy
Chester, managing director for the nonprofit Rebuild by Design.
“Climate change is expensive. We’re going to have to spend money on it and every single dollar we spend in any type of infrastructure needs to take into consideration the future,” she said.
Redlener said New York City and other communities need to rethink warning systems and consider re-engineering drainage, electrical and storm warning systems.
He noted that the city’s aging subway system has long been relied upon to absorb excess water from heavy rains, but that was before record rainfalls set off unprecedented flooding.
He said the future of New York City’s basement apartments also must be reconsidered.
“What are we going to do for them now and what are we gonna do for people in the future? Are we going to even permit people legally to live in basement apartments, and if not, do we have the capacity and the resources to have other alternatives? I don’t know that we do,” he said.