Initiation of Investigation into City’s Progress on Extreme Weather Preparedness Commitments
The Honorable Eric Adams
Mayor
City Hall
New York, NY 10007
Re: Initiation of Investigation into City’s Progress on Extreme Rainfall Preparedness
Dear Honorable Eric Adams,
As the flooding New York City experienced from the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia last week demonstrated, the “new normal” of intensified storms requires a whole of government focus on emergency preparedness and climate resilience. My office is launching an investigation of the City of New York’s implementation of commitments after Hurricane Ida to improve the City’s emergency preparedness, communications, and infrastructure in response to extreme weather. In addition to increasing public transparency regarding the City of New York’s efforts to prepare for future storms, I hope that this review will aid your administration in prioritizing the distribution of managerial and financial resources to priority initiatives to prevent damage, injury, and loss of life in future storms.
Our investigation will evaluate the City’s implementation of new policies and protocols set forth following the devastating impacts of Hurricane Ida. The review will include commitments made by the de Blasio administration in the September 2021 The New Normal report, as well as the commitments made by your administration in the July 2022 Rainfall Ready plan and March 2022 CDBG-DR Action Plan. We will review whether near-term actions were completed and evaluate how those actions have been incorporated into the City’s emergency response protocols. For longer term initiatives, such as capital infrastructure improvement, we will seek to assess whether projects are on track and explore recommendations to improve implementation.
Pursuant to Chapter 5, Section 93, of the City Charter and Chapter 3 of the Administrative Code, the Office of the New York City Comptroller will request detailed information from a number of agencies responsible for various emergency preparedness commitments, including the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, New York City Emergency Management, Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Department of Transportation, Department of City Planning, Department of Small Business Services, Department of Design and Construction, Department of Parks and Recreation, Department of Buildings, and New York City Housing Authority. We hope to coordinate those requests for timely information with a dedicated point person in the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, or otherwise specified by the City.
When Hurricane Ida arrived in September 2021 with record rainfall that took 13 lives and caused millions of dollars of damage, it caught the City of New York flat-footed. Ida was a wakeup call that prompted our urgent attention to the risks of flash flooding. While investments after Hurricane Sandy focused on coastal communities, Hurricane Ida drove our attention to infrastructure improvements and emergency planning for inland communities vulnerable to flash flooding. In the immediate aftermath of Ida, the City under your predecessor convened an Extreme Weather Response Task Force of interagency staff who compiled a new set of protocols and policies for combatting heavy rainstorms. In 2022, the City received $188M of HUD CDBG-Disaster Recovery funding to support long-term Ida recovery and your administration released Rainfall Ready, a plan for intense storms.
Two years after Ida, the storm that drenched New York City on September 29, 2023 shut down half the subway lines, flooded basements, schools, and entire city streets. These types of rainstorms are only becoming more frequent – and our efforts to prepare must escalate accordingly. I look forward to working with your agencies to ensure that our City has effectively adopted the lessons learned from recent storms and to identify areas where focused attention can right-track implementation of politics and protocols that will keep New Yorkers safe in future storms.
Thank you and your team for your assistance with this investigation.
Sincerely,
Comptroller Brad Lander