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 By Peter HUTCHISON New York (AFP) Sept 3, 2021
The deaths of almost a dozen New Yorkers who could not escape their homes during flash flooding has exposed the perils of living in the city's often-dangerous basements. With rents in the Big Apple among the most expensive in the world, below-ground units offer an affordable option for many low-income residents. But the cramped, sometimes windowless apartments can come with risks as Wednesday night's record rainfall painfully highlighted. Of the 13 people killed in New York City, 11 were found dead in basements, police said, as rapidly rising water levels left them with no way out. The deaths highlight how the effects of climate change are disproportionately impacting the poor. "Among the people MOST at risk during flash floods here are those living in off-the-books basement dwellings that don't meet the safety codes necessary to save lives," lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "These are working class, immigrant, and low-income people & families," she added. Although it is not yet known whether those who died lived in illegal basements, the tragedy has renewed attention about the issue. The New York Times reported that an 86-year-old woman found dead at home in Queens lived in a building where there had been complaints about illegal basements. Another victim was a 66-year-old man, originally from Ecuador, who died in a windowless bedroom in Brooklyn, the newspaper said. A 2008 study by the Pratt Center for Community Development found that 114,000 New Yorkers lived in illegal basement apartments but researchers say the number is now likely to be much higher. "The problem is that because these spaces are illegal, because there are big fines associated with them, because the tenants need the space, the homeowners need the income, no one wants to talk about it," said Rebekah Morris, who leads basement legalization work at Pratt, told AFP. "So it's very, very difficult to assess what the actual numbers are but we know anecdotally that it's very high," she added. The problem is becoming more acute as New York's population grows but adequate housing fails to keep up. Over the past decade, the city added 629,000 people, bringing its population to more than 8.8 million, according to US census data released last month. All but one death in this week's storm occurred in the borough of Queens, which has a high immigrant population, including many undocumented workers from Central and South America. - Evacuation plan - Morris said basement units are "a key piece of the housing ecosystem" among immigrant communities, essential workers and older residents, who cannot afford to stay elsewhere. "There's such a big crisis here. We don't have enough housing. And so people rent where they can't get a roof over their head, which puts them in danger," said Morris. Experts want action taken against unscrupulous landlords who take advantage of low supply and cut corners to maximize profits. "There does have to be some accountability for the property owners who cut up apartments illegally," Nicole Gelinas, urban economics expert at the Manhattan Institute think-tank, told AFP. But activists also say that basement apartments are part of the solution to New York's housing problems. It's not basement units per se that are problematic but illegal ones that don't meet basic safety requirements such as suitable emergency exit routes, they say. The Pratt Center is part of a coalition of groups trying to help increase the number of legally-recognized below-ground units under a campaign called BASE, which stands for Basement Apartments Safe for Everyone. They estimate that there is the potential for the creation of 200,000 safe and affordable basement apartments to boost New York's housing stock. On Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that extreme weather caused by climate change meant New York required a "new set of ground rules" for those living below ground. "We need a plan to evacuate folks who live in basements when we have extreme rain and flooding, he told MSNBC, announcing he would set up a task force to study the issue.
At least 44 dead as flash floods hit US northeast Record rainfall, which prompted an unprecedented flash flood emergency warning for New York City, turned streets into rivers and shut down subway services as water cascaded down platforms onto tracks. "I'm 50 years old and I've never seen that much rain ever," said Metodija Mihajlov whose basement of his Manhattan restaurant was flooded with three inches of water. "It was like living in the jungle, like tropical rain. Unbelievable. Everything is so strange this year," he told AFP. Hundreds of flights were canceled at LaGuardia and JFK airports, as well as at Newark, where video showed a terminal inundated by rainwater. President Joe Biden declared emergencies in the states of New York and New Jersey on Thursday, ordering federal disaster management agencies to coordinate relief efforts and provide emergency support. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was mandated "to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency," the White House said in a statement. Ahead of a visit to the southern state of Louisiana, where Ida earlier destroyed buildings and left more than a million homes without power, Biden said "we're all in this together. The nation is ready to help". - 'Historic weather event' - Flooding closed major roads across New Jersey and New York boroughs including Manhattan, The Bronx and Queens, submerging cars and forcing the fire department to rescue hundreds of people. At least 23 people died in New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy told reporters. "The majority of these deaths were individuals who got caught in their vehicles," he said. A state trooper died in the neighboring state of Connecticut. Thirteen died in New York City, including 11 who could not escape their basements, police said. The victims ranged from the ages of two to 86. "Among the people MOST at risk during flash floods here are those living in off-the-books basement dwellings that don't meet the safety codes necessary to save lives," lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "These are working class, immigrant, and low-income people & families," she added. Three also died in the New York suburb of Westchester, while another four died in Montgomery County outside Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, a local official confirmed. Ida blazed a trail of destruction north after slamming into Louisiana over the weekend, bringing severe flooding and tornadoes. "We're enduring an historic weather event tonight with record-breaking rain across the city, brutal flooding and dangerous conditions on our roads," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said late Wednesday. The National Weather Service issued its first-ever emergency flash flood warning for New York City, urging residents to move to higher ground. "You do not know how deep the water is and it is too dangerous," the New York branch of the National Weather Service (NWS) said in a tweet. The NWS recorded 3.15 inches (80 millimeters) of rain in Central Park in just an hour -- beating a record set just last month during Storm Henri. The US Open was also halted as howling wind and rain blew under the corners of the Louis Armstrong Stadium roof. - Lingering tornado threat - New Yorkers woke to clear blue skies Thursday as the city edged back to life, but signs of the previous night's carnage weren't far away: residents moved fallen tree branches from roads as subway services slowly resumed. By Thursday evening, around 38,000 homes in Pennsylvania, 24,000 in New Jersey and 12,000 in New York were without power, according to the website poweroutage.us, a significant decrease from earlier in the day. It is rare for such storms to strike America's northeastern seaboard and comes as the surface layer of oceans warms due to climate change. The warming is causing cyclones to become more powerful and carry more water, posing an increasing threat to the world's coastal communities, scientists say. "Global warming is upon us and it's going to get worse and worse and worse unless we do something about it," said Democratic senator Chuck Schumer. In Annapolis, 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Washington, a tornado ripped up trees and toppled electricity poles. The NWS warned the threat of tornadoes would linger, with tornado watches in effect for parts of southern Connecticut, northern New Jersey, and southern New York as Ida tracked north through New England. A tornado struck the popular tourist destination Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on Thursday evening.
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