Comptroller Stringer Calls on City to Detail Updated Emergency Preparedness Plans, as Hurricane Season Intensifies

(New York, NY) – As the 2019 hurricane season intensifies, New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer sent a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio calling on the City to detail specific steps taken to reform emergency preparation plans and spotlighting breakdowns in the City’s response to Superstorm Sandy that left NYCHA residents more vulnerable, stalled recovery efforts, and jeopardized vital services. Comptroller Stringer’s letter outlines critical priorities identified in previous audits by the Comptroller’s office, where the City must improve protocols to more efficiently respond to natural disasters and help New Yorkers recover.

“It’s not a question of whether New York will be hit by another superstorm like Sandy, but when. Yet nearly seven years after Sandy struck, we still haven’t fully recovered and too many New Yorkers remain vulnerable to the next storm. Over the past six years my office has catalogued the many ways the City failed New Yorkers in the hours, months, and years after Sandy. Our City is responsible for mobilizing to protect New Yorkers the minute the next storm strikes and we can’t let NYCHA residents, shorefront communities, or vulnerable New Yorkers suffer because we didn’t learn our lessons from Sandy,” said New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer. “It’s past time for the City to reassure New Yorkers that we are better prepared than we were six years ago. Lives are at stake, homes and businesses are on the line, and futures hang in the balance. We need to act with the urgency that our climate crisis demands because time is not on our side.”

Comptroller Stringer’s letter requested the following information from the City regarding progress made in preparation for future storms.

• Steps taken to ensure that NYCHA is able to contact and assist NYCHA residents with disabilities who may need assistance during a disaster.
• Efforts undertaken to implement the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan at every NYCHA development across the City.
• Steps taken to systematically conduct drills, exercises and other training events at all NYCHA developments including instituting a multi-year training and exercise schedule.
• Review of the Build It Back program and best practice recommendations for future similar programs.
• Plans to better coordinate emergency purchases of crucial supplies and services which can protect New Yorkers.
• Policies relating to the use of interim flood protection measures, such as pre-deployed barriers and ‘just-in-time’ flood measures.

To read Comptroller Stringer’s letter to the City on emergency preparedness, click here.

To read Comptroller Stringer’s 2015 audit of NYCHA’s Emergency Preparedness Plans, click here.

To read Comptroller Stringer’s coastal resiliency plan for the city, click here.

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