EAST FLATBUSH, Brooklyn (PIX11) — After a deluge flooded dozens of neighborhoods across the five boroughs and fatally injured two people in the process, people who knew the victims are not only mourning them, but are also expressing concern that infrastructure issues could result in similarly tragic emergencies becoming more frequent.
Outside of a home near the intersection of Kingston Avenue and Rutland Road, residents talked about their neighbor who they said lived in a tent in the backyard, and let his two dogs stay in the basement. The basement was inundated in a downpour on Thursday afternoon, which dropped an inch of rain in about 10 minutes, according to city authorities.
“Look up here — the water,” said one of the building’s residents, pointing to a water line nearly two feet above the entrance to the building’s basement.
Their 39-year-old neighbor, who has not been officially identified by police, apparently drowned, neighbors said, in the basement that became a cistern — a capped pool — in minutes.
“He wanted to save his dog and go back inside,” the resident, who did not give his name, said.
The drowning victim had managed to save one of his two dogs, according to witnesses, but he drowned trying to save the other one. The FDNY dive team retrieved his body. His identity is expected to be officially disclosed once his next of kin are notified of his passing.
Meanwhile, 19 miles away, in Washington Heights, in Upper Manhattan, there were words of remembrance for another victim of Thursday’s floods.
“Very nice guy,” said Hector Cacagno about Juan Carlos Montoya Hernandez, 43. “Beautiful guy.”
Montoya Hernandez was an assistant to a supervisor in the building where he lived, located near Broadway and 175th Street, according to residents in the area. They said that when floodwaters rolled down to the basement area of the building, he’d gone down to the boiler, and was electrocuted.
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George Rodriguez, who knew Montoya Hernandez, called it tragic.
“It’s so sad when you see somebody pass away,” he said, about the loss. “It’s a human being.”
Meanwhile, an intersection in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, highlighted some other people’s concerns related to flooding and climate change.
At the corner of Throop Avenue and Halsey Street, severe flash flooding on Thursday left businesses there clearing out and cleaning up on Friday. The owner of a restaurant at the intersection said that he wasn’t sure when he’d be able to reopen.
One of his customers pointed to a flood monitor device that was attached to a street sign at the intersection. It’s one of more than 250 monitors that have been installed citywide by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection in an effort to warn about flood risks as quickly and as early as possible.
Massimo Pileggi, a regular patron of the corner restaurant, said that he’s concerned that floods in the area may not only worsen but also become more frequent.
“Without a doubt, it’s gonna happen again,” he said. Then, he pointed to the flood monitor on the street sign pole he was standing near, and added, “Right here, they just installed literally two weeks ago the flood warning thing,” he said, referring to the device. “And the joke was, yesterday, among some of us, is it working?”
In a statement, the Department of Environmental Protection discussed its reaction to the storm’s challenges, as well as the importance of the storm monitors.
“Yesterday’s record-setting rainfall continues the recent pattern of short but intense downpours that have become increasingly common,” a spokesperson said. “It was also exceptionally windy, and with it being autumn, fallen leaves only made things worse. In some areas, our crews found as much as a foot of leaves piled over catch basins, blocking drains and keeping intersections underwater. As a result, we saw significant flooding — and tragically, two New Yorkers lost their lives in flooding-related incidents. During storms such as this, DEP uses real-time FloodNet alerts to monitor conditions and deploy crews across the city to clear debris and relieve flooding.”
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