Get ready to batten down the hatches.
Mayor Adams and several top officials predicted above-normal hurricane activity in the coming months and warned New Yorkers to start making evacuation plans in case a storm hits their neighborhood hard.
The broad forecast, which was delivered by Adams as well as officials from FEMA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, predicts that 2022 will be the seventh straight “above normal” storm season for the eastern seaboard and that it could bring anywhere from 14 to 21 storms with winds of at least 39 mph.
Of those, three to six storms are expected to become hurricanes with top winds of at least 111 mph, according to NOAA Director Rick Spinrad, who joined Adams and other officials at the city’s Office of Emergency Management in Brooklyn.
“When it comes to coastal storms, hurricanes and floods, preparation is everything,” Adams said. “I want every New Yorker to be ready.”
Some of the preparations the city is taking are complete, while others are still underway.
Christina Farrell, who serves as first deputy commissioner in Adams’ Office of Emergency Management, directed New Yorkers to the city’s website, which provides an interactive map that enables New Yorkers to determine whether they live in a flood zone and which one.
There are six flood zones in the city, but not every city resident lives or works in one. For example, Adams noted that while City Hall is located within one of the zones, his current residence, Gracie Mansion, is not.
“If you live in one of the six evacuation zones, you may be ordered to evacuate for your own safety by emergency management and by the mayor if a dangerous storm is approaching,” Farrell said. “If ordered to evacuate, it is vital that New Yorkers follow city officials’ guidance.”
Higher-risk flood zones — the highest risk is Zone 1 — are typically closer to bodies of water and in low-lying areas, and include areas like the Rockaways, Coney Island and lower Manhattan.
The forecast from NOAA comes less than a year after Hurricane Ida barreled into the city and took 13 lives here, many of them due to flooding in basement apartments in Queens. It comes 10 years after Superstorm Sandy flung the city into disarray for months and prompted elected leaders to rethink how government should prepare for the more powerful and more frequent storms that have resulted from climate change.
During Hurricane Ida, evacuation plans for the city weren’t in place, but that isn’t the case this year.
Aside from those plans, the city has also poured at least $50 million into sewer projects to increase capacity in the event of the sort of flash flooding caused by Hurricane Ida.
One challenge, though, is that many basement apartments in the city are still considered illegal dwellings under state law. Efforts to change that in order to better regulate them are ongoing, but it’s still unclear whether lawmakers in Albany will ultimately act on pending legislation.
The city, Adams said, is still in the process of putting together a master list of all of those dwellings, too. He said the city is “looking at” a text messaging system to use to alert people living in basement apartments in the event of storms and flash flooding. He did not provide a specific timeline regarding when that system would be up and running.
He added that such a system could also be used to convey evacuation information such as which route to take in the event of a sudden storm or flood.
“Late information can be deadly information,” he said. “Our goal is to make sure that we communicate.”
