{"id":239805,"date":"2026-05-21T21:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T21:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/239805\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T21:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T21:38:10","slug":"new-york-city-flooded-after-torrential-rain-will-it-happen-more-frequently","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/239805\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City flooded after torrential rain. Will it happen more frequently?"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK CITY (PIX11) \u2014 In the first severe flash-flooding episode<\/a> of the year for New York City, streets were filled with backed-up rainwater up to pedestrians\u2019 knees.<\/p>\n

Dozens of videos, from Manhattan to Queens and Brooklyn, showed the damage to New York City\u2019s streets and subways<\/a>. Traffic was backed up, trains were significantly delayed or suspended and one woman was even seen being swept away<\/a> after stepping off an MTA bus.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Discover more local reporting on our homepage\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Why was the NYC flooding so intense?<\/p>\n

According to the National Weather Service, parts of Queens saw over 2.2 inches of rain during the storm, and just under 2 inches in Brooklyn. Residents were trying their best to clear catch basins, but it was already too late.<\/p>\n

Neslon Vaz, a meteorologist for the NWS, said areas in the two boroughs experienced most of that rainfall in 20 to 40 minutes, which is why the water buildup was so intense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese sub-hourly intense rainfall events are challenging to calibrate with ground truth and real-world impacts quickly enough to confidently upgrade to a FFW (flash flood warning) before the event comes to an end,\u201d Vaz said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Stay connected with community stories that matter: Visit our homepage\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Why can\u2019t the city drains handle it?<\/p>\n

In an interview with PIX11 News following intense flooding last summer<\/a>, former Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol said the city\u2019s half-century-old infrastructure was designed to handle 1.75 inches of rain in an hour.<\/p>\n

Similarly, former NYC Environmental Protection Commissioner Rhit Aggarwala said, \u201cThe reality is I don\u2019t know that it\u2019s at all possible to design the sewers to handle\u201d that much water in such a short span.<\/p>\n

\u201cAddressing stormwater resilience to fix this underground infrastructure is going to be the work of tens of years, decades,\u201d Aggarwala said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0More: Latest News from Around the Tri-State\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Why the problem won\u2019t go away (and could get worse)<\/p>\n

Both the Office of Climate and Environmental Justice and the Department of Planning have estimated that monthly tidal flooding<\/a> could become widespread in New York City due to rising sea levels by the 2050s.<\/p>\n

NYC Planning\u2019s 2016 report<\/a> predicts that the number of people living in floodplain risk areas could more than double by the 2050s, along with the likelihood of flooding occurring.<\/p>\n

The New York City Panel on Climate Change expects sea levels to increase between 8 and 30 inches by then, and as much as 15 to 75 inches by the year 2100.<\/p>\n

The OCEJ said chronic tidal flooding will likely impact the area around Jamaica Bay more than anywhere else. That\u2019s roughly 55% of 86,000 units in 1-to-2 family buildings.<\/p>\n

Spencer Gustafson is a digital content producer from Long Island who has covered New York state and city news since 2023. See more of his work here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK CITY (PIX11) \u2014 In the first severe flash-flooding episode of the year for New York City,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93709,534,9,24,55,54,56,93708],"class_list":["post-239805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-flash-flood-warning","tag-national-weather-service","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-tidal-flooding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}