[HN Gopher] New York City declares state of emergency amid flash...
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New York City declares state of emergency amid flash floods
Author : anigbrowl
Score : 55 points
Date : 2023-09-29 20:32 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| digitalsushi wrote:
| I'd like to hear from people who are there right now. How scary
| is this? Because it looks like the end of the world. But are we
| all watching the same whirlpool video and it was cherry picked
| doom, or is it really that bad everywhere?
| master_crab wrote:
| I just biked from midtown Manhattan to Prospect park since I
| couldn't commute by train.
|
| It's fine. More puddles, more street closures, more aggressive
| drivers. Just NYC on a sugar rush.
| afavour wrote:
| I biked through Prospect Park this morning and it was
| absolutely hellish. A lot has changed in the last eight hours
| or so.
| master_crab wrote:
| Did not enter the park. But I wouldn't be surprised if a
| bunch of trees have fallen on the loop.
| Macha wrote:
| I took the subway to broad street, took the boat to the statue
| of liberty and walked back to Soho. That whole region of
| Manhattan, at least, is fine. There were some delays on the
| subway because someone slipped on the stairs from the rain and
| needed medical attention, that's about it.
| BoxFour wrote:
| In Manhattan, at least, there has been a significant amount of
| rainfall, but things have mostly cleared up now on the streets.
| yowzadave wrote:
| The videos show the worst spots--in most cases you can get
| around them, assuming you have time and aren't worried about
| getting wet.
|
| It's definitely scary and dangerous if you or your car happens
| to be stuck in the water. If you're in an apartment that
| doesn't have drainage issues, you can probably stay inside
| without noticing much. If you own a house with a basement in
| some neighborhoods, there's a good chance you have (potentially
| sewage-contaminated) water flowing into it.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Not a local but drove into Long Island city for a date night in
| midtown. Wouldn't have guessed there was a noteworthy problem
| although there was a lot of rain.
| omni wrote:
| I spent all day with friends going around Manhattan, Brooklyn,
| and Queens. We had to Uber around since the subway was mostly
| disabled. That was expensive and traffic wasn't great but we
| got around just fine. All the places we went to were open and
| happy to serve us.
| Grazester wrote:
| Its not all areas of Brooklyn that are flooded of course. Some
| of those areas flooded usually experience some kind of flooding
| when it rains heavily. There was a heavy monsoon like downpour
| on 4 th of July for about an hour and there was flooding in the
| Prospect Park area and Windsor terrace area(flooded now again);
| Enough that given I was in my previously lowered car I wouldn't
| have been able to drive through it.
|
| Another flooded area Borough Park is flat and I believe gets a
| lot of run off from the more elevation Sunset park neighborhood
| nextdoor.
| peyton wrote:
| It's fine. There's a map somewhere with all the spots where
| floods will happen. Good to reference before living somewhere
| new.
| lbotos wrote:
| I live in Brooklyn. It's.... as bad as Ida was 2 years ago,
| maybe slightly less.
|
| My cellar flooded, but I was able to pump it out as the storm
| drains caught up. I've changed some plumbing in prep -- Ida I
| took 2' in the Cellar, today I had about 2" when I was able to
| pump out.
|
| The most dangerous thing is cellar apartments (of which there
| are many illegal) that can flood quickly.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I have family all over NYC. Seems like Brooklyn got hit the
| hardest. The video they took and sent me, some streets are
| about knee height. Other borough are flooded enough to effect
| homes and basements but nothing catastrophically bad. The worse
| part is the backed up drains and sewers.
| d_watt wrote:
| 8 million people across 300 square miles, so there's variety.
| It's fine near me, but canceled dinner plans because of train
| issues.
|
| Media will highlight the worst.
| afavour wrote:
| Right now it's not scary at all. If anything I'm impressed by
| the city's drainage systems because _this morning_ was an
| absolute horror show in my area of Brooklyn.
|
| IMO the bigger story from this particular storm is the lack of
| preparation by the Mayor's office. We heard very little about
| the oncoming storm from government sources. Declaring a state
| of emergency is all very well but it's (literally!) pretty late
| in the day.
| seneca wrote:
| Is anyone aware of major civil engineering effort being
| undertaken in NYC to deal with this? They've had several major
| flooding events in the last handful of years. Seems almost as if
| they need levees.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| NYC might be able to do something like that if it wasn't being
| strangled budget-wise by an insanely expensive, overstaffed,
| and ineffective police department.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| https://www.6sqft.com/army-corps-of-engineers-releases-first...
| seneca wrote:
| Thank you for the link. A bit unfortunate for the aesthetics
| but likely necessary.
| mnutt wrote:
| Today's flooding was caused by excessive rain, and I think the
| problems are mostly around inadequate drainage? Whereas Sandy
| was a storm surge and could have been mitigated with something
| like levees.
| anotherhue wrote:
| UWS/HK seems fine - I suspect we're at a higher elevation. BK
| seems the worst hit from the videos.
| shin_lao wrote:
| NYer here.
|
| NYC infrastructure is old and unmaintained. The sewer system is
| 175 years old. These floods happen every year at different
| magnitude.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| > "Overall, as we know, this changing weather pattern is the
| result of climate change," Rohit Aggarwala, New York City's Chief
| Climate Officer said
|
| What a joke. Severe weather, including rain even worse than this,
| could have occurred even if there were no climate change.
| catlover76 wrote:
| You would fail the LSAT with that kind of logical reasoning
| ability; just because something (y) might have occurred in the
| absence of a potential cause (x), does not mean that the claim
| that x caused y is prima facie false or "a joke".
|
| Trying to bury one's head in the sand about climate change, on
| the other hand, is of course arrogant and morally corrupt.
| thefurdrake wrote:
| > What a joke. Severe weather, including rain even worse than
| this, could have occurred even if there were no climate change.
|
| "I've coughed before while I'm healthy, that means the common
| cold is a lie; could have occurred even if there were no common
| cold."
| juujian wrote:
| Ok? And? You can get cancer even without being exposed to
| asbestos...
| johnnyworker wrote:
| Not with that that frequency and magnitude.
|
| https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-how-climate-change-affect...
| renewiltord wrote:
| Everyone's constantly declaring states of emergency. It's hard to
| care.
|
| Over the last year, San Francisco and Alameda have been in a
| "state of emergency" over:
|
| - monkeypox - COVID-19 - homelessness - drug use
|
| This weekend I might go look back at everything and see what
| duration we have not been in an emergency over.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| NYC resident, here. Its crazy bad.
| timr wrote:
| NYC resident here. It is not "crazy bad". Other than the trains
| not running (which, let's be clear, is unfortunately _not_
| super rare), I barely noticed a difference.
|
| Zero-content exaggeration like this is infuriating. Obviously,
| if you're in an area that got flooded, it may well be the worst
| thing you've experienced in years. One person cannot speak for
| a city of 8 million people.
| philipov wrote:
| Again?! Didn't this same thing happen last year or maybe the one
| before?
| Johnny555 wrote:
| It'll probably happen next year and the year after that too.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Every year until the underwriters refuse to underwrite - as
| is already happening on the gulf coast.
|
| Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| At least in New York the geology permits a seawall, if they
| get their shit together and build it.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Does a sea wall help with too much rain at once?
| [deleted]
| discreteevent wrote:
| I don't know about NYC but in general a sea wall could
| hold back a high tide. A lot of coastal cities flood when
| there is high rainfall coinciding with a high tide. When
| the tide is low the rain just drains into the river and
| out to sea.
| nostrademons wrote:
| No, but better drainage would.
|
| In my sister's ex-subdivision in Houston, the streets
| were designed to flood, channeling any water away from
| property and into bayous, rivers, and ultimately the Gulf
| of Mexico. It worked as designed over several tropical
| storms. The streets were a mess but everybody's home,
| driveway, and property stayed dry.
|
| NYC needs a similar effort - change the streets and
| subways to channel water away from property and into the
| harbor, while providing means to harden the underground
| parts that can't get wet. It will be crazy expensive, but
| it's an engineering & construction problem, not a
| geographic or climate one.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Sandy the subway stations were filled with water. There were
| emergency flood gates built into the tunnels in some places but
| they weren't maintained.
| pixl97 wrote:
| "Didn't we have record floods last year too?"
|
| "Didn't we have record highs last year too?"
|
| "Didn't we have record tornadoes last year too?"
|
| "Didn't we have record fires last year too?"
|
| Welcome to the age of climate instability.
| Alupis wrote:
| *Welcome to the age of constant 24/7 sensationalized news
| cycles. Gotta get those clicks! One doom-n-gloom done, onto
| the next!
| spicybright wrote:
| These are the actual results of climate change though.
| What's being sensationalized here?
| djaouen wrote:
| If you can't stand the heat, get off of Earth, as Elon says.
| spandextwins wrote:
| I feel so bad for all those who just moved there, I hope they're
| all ok.
| thefurdrake wrote:
| Who?
| readyplayernull wrote:
| But you feel good for those that moved out? What about those
| that can't move at all? Eh? What?
| sghiassy wrote:
| I'm literally sitting in White Horse Tavern bar in West Village,
| Manhattan right now and we (bartender, wait staff and I) are all
| joking about where all the flooding is.
|
| I'm sure there's flooding somewhere in NYC, just as I'm sure
| there's flooding somewhere in North America right right now
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(page generated 2023-09-29 23:00 UTC)