By Ryan Schwach<\/p>\n
Streets, sidewalks and subway stations across Southeast Queens were inundated with several inches of floodwater as a September nor\u2019easter bore down on the East Coast over the weekend. <\/p>\n
Floodwater deluged some residential blocks in Howard Beach, Broad Channel and Far Rockaway, damaging streets and homes. While the borough was spared the worst of the storm, which remained mostly offshore, its consequences were still felt in Queens\u2019 coastal communities. <\/p>\n
Cars and firetrucks pushed through flooded streets, and one video of some creative Howard Beach residents using kayaks to paddle out to the Howard Beach-JFK subway stop went viral. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s some of the worst flooding we\u2019ve seen in a couple of years,\u201d said Roger Gendron of the Hamilton Beach Civic Association, which represents one of Queens\u2019 lowest-lying coastal communities. \u201cThe one thing about coastal flooding is it’s predictable. It’s unlike flash flooding that happens in other parts of the city, but it’s something that we wish would go away. It was substantial enough where some of the roadways remained flooded for hours.\u201d <\/p>\n
Gendron said during Saturday morning\u2019s high tide, water came more than nine feet above sea level. <\/p>\n
The flooding was more sporadic, and not extensive across the neighborhood, but it was enough to cause troubles for many local residents. <\/p>\n
\u201cSome got it in their basement, some got it in the living area, but it wasn’t as widespread as it could have been,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Other parts of Southeast Queens also saw several inches of water, including Hollis and Far Rockaway. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis weekend\u2019s nor\u2019easter was another stark reminder of just how vulnerable many of our communities remain to flooding and severe weather,\u201d said Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers. \u201cUnfortunately, I have heard from a few residents in my district who lost nearly everything.\u201d <\/p>\n
Brooks-Powers, who represents Far Rockaway and other Southeast Queens neighborhoods like Hollis that also saw flooded streets, wants to see the city take more long-term steps to address flooding in the borough. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I appreciate the administration\u2019s proactive efforts ahead of the storm, including outreach to vulnerable residents and steps to prepare our infrastructure, preparedness alone cannot be our long-term strategy,\u201d she said. \u201cAs extreme weather events increasingly test our city, we have to be just as focused on resilience: how and where we build, whether our sewer and drainage systems can support additional development, and how quickly we deliver the infrastructure projects our communities have been promised.\u201d <\/p>\n
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards toured some of the flooding, including outside Gendron\u2019s home in Hamilton Beach. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a rough weekend in Queens,\u201d the BP said on social media. \u201cFrom Howard Beach to Rockaway and beyond, our roads became rivers and our basements became pools. Nor\u2019easters are facts of life. But our families being constantly flooded out like this \u2014 by rain or surge \u2014 in every storm is a policy choice.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAll levels of government can and must do more,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Flooding has become a regular occurrence in the World\u2019s Borough. This weekend\u2019s storm was the fourth major flooding event in which Queens has borne the brunt so far this year.<\/p>\n
The impacts of the storm were felt more acutely by low-lying coastal communities, with water from the high tide exacerbated by the nor\u2019easter\u2019s winds. But in other parts of Queens, flooding issues stem from heavy rain that the borough\u2019s outdated infrastructure fails to keep up with.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I wake up in the morning, I don’t know where to look,\u201d Richards said after another storm earlier this summer. \u201cBefore, it was just automatically Rosedale, it was automatically Far Rockaway. You’re not really seeing those issues there anymore. Now I have Queens Center Mall to contend with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coastal flooding has been a lifelong fight for Gendron and his neighbors. <\/p>\n
The Queens local said that he has a \u201claundry list\u201d of things government could do to help protect low-lying areas like Hamilton Beach, but said buyouts for residents are becoming a common pitch. <\/p>\n
\u201cProtection is on the back burner until they get more funds to do that,\u201d Gendron said. \u201cThe only thing they can look at is buyouts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last thing I want to see is them take out a row of houses up the block from me, then sell it to a developer to come in and build on it, because that’s a slap in the face to the person who lived there, it’s a slap in the face to us who stayed,\u201d he added. \u201cAt the end of the day, my neighborhood is still going to be inaccessible because of the locations that do flood. The only way to stop that is to stop the water, and if you stop the water, you don’t need a buyout program.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ryan Schwach Streets, sidewalks and subway stations across Southeast Queens were inundated with several inches of floodwater…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-359451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359451","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=359451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}