‘Worried every day it rains’: East Elmhurst residents struggle with flooding
/
Residents of East Elmhurst in Queens have struggled with flooding due to sewer surges when it rains, incurring thousands in damages and infrastructure fixes. Courtesy of Dinu Ahmed
By Ryan Schwach
A rainy night means a sleepless night for residents of one section of East Elmhurst. They’d prefer to catch the disaster as it strikes, rather than wake up to it in the morning.
For years, residents of 77th Street and of nearby blocks in East Elmhurst say they’ve struggled with sewer water flooding their basements and apartments, causing them anxiety, health issues and thousands of dollars in damages. Most of the flooding comes after just an average rain, they say.
As climate change brings heavier and more frequent rainfall, locals are looking for solutions, which may not be as straightforward – or as immediate – as they might hope.
“On our block, sewer backup is what impacts all of us,” said Nabil Jamaleddine, an East Elmhurst local and software engineer who has lived in the area since 2017.
Pretty much whenever it rains, locals on 77th Street and surrounding blocks in the neighborhood, stress about sewer surges, which occur when the sewer system and catch basins can’t keep up with the demand brought on by the falling rain.
Heavy rain or a dangerous storm is bad, but just a little bit of rain, Jamaleddine says, can create an immense problem.
“Any amount of sewage in the basement, over a few inches, or even half an inch, is just terrible to deal with,” he said.
The flooding often leads to mold, which becomes a problem in itself. Cleaning the damage caused by the flooding creates more worries due to toxins in the sewer water that find their way into East Elmhurst basements.
Alvaro Cruz, another resident, got an infection in his legs several months after cleaning his basement after Hurricane Ida, which he attests to the dirty water.
“I was in the hospital three times,” he said.
The dangers of the water’s contents usually result in almost everything it touches, including important belongings and family heirlooms, needing to be thrown out.
Long-term problems
Draining the basement is just half the battle – wallets are also drained.
“[I’m] just pouring money into this thing just to try to fix it,” said Jamaleddine. “But that thing gets very expensive. A lot of neighbors, they just don't have the funds to do this sort of thing.”
The problems first began to be noticed by residents after Hurricane Ida in 2021, which destroyed basements and flooded areas across the city, leaving 13 dead in the five boroughs, including 11 people from Queens.
The response to tha storm prompted a resurrected conversation on storm readiness, congressional hearings and even a visit from President Joe Biden, who stopped by a flooded block in East Elmhurst.
“They’re always the first ones who are hurt and the last ones that are helped – but that’s not going to happen this time,” Biden said at the time, not far from 77th Street.
After Hurricane Ida in 2021, President Joe Biden visited East Elmhurst and toured storm damage. AP Photo/Evan Vucci
However, issues have persisted.
“In the time that I've been here, we've had three major flooding events,” said local resident and public defender Dinu Ahmed, who lives a few blocks away from 77th Street. “But the frequency that we've been dealing with flooding, even minor flooding events, has definitely been increasing.”
The major events, according to Ahmed, who has lived in the community for two decades, include a storm in 2007, Ida and Tropical Storm Ophelia in September of last year.
“We had just over 30 inches of water, sewage backup,” Ahmed said of the 2023 storm. “What this has meant for us is repeated instances of having to gut our basement completely, and then we had no walls, no floor, no doors. Everything had to be taken out.”
Like her neighbors, Ahmed says she has had to spend thousands of dollars out-of-pocket to pay for cleanup, as well as potential solutions, like installing a check valve in her basement, an installation which had to be preceded by asbestos mitigation, which along with the check valve cost around $10,000.
The check valve helped, but created a new financial need for maintenance and checkups.
“Why are we shelling out so much for a problem that is not of our own making? It just seems incredibly unjust,” she said. “We don't want to get pushed out of our neighborhood and we want to feel safe.”
Ahmed said she worries for her neighbors, some of whom are elderly, or have chronic health or mobility issues.
“It's dangerous both in the immediacy of what's happening, but also the long-term effects of what we're being exposed to,” she said.
Beyond the physical effects, Ahmed said the street’s issues cause psychological damage, as well.
“Every single time it rains heavily, nobody in this neighborhood sleeps,” she said. “You see all the lights go on at 2 a.m. We're all looking at the street, it feels like post-traumatic stress, it's really difficult.”
Why East Elmhurst floods
The heart of the issue stems from the outdated sewer system itself, exacerbated by the issues wrought by climate change, experts say.
“These are surge issues, very heavy rain events – it's not a sewer backing up,” said Katherine Brezler, the Special Advisor for Strategic Initiatives at Borough President Donovan Richards office who deals with these kinds of community issues.
Brezler said that the city’s sewer system was built to withstand around one and a half to one and three quarter inches of rainwater per hour – but recent storms have brought far more than that.
“The borough president’s position and our position is that the standard that sewers are built to is not meeting the moment of the next 100 years, and the standard should be changed to five inches,” Brezler said.
Brezler added that much of the issue is that the sewer systems and catch basins were built and designed to withstand a once-in-a-100-year storm, which no longer comes just every 100 years.
Solutions are far from easy
Solutions to the flooding issues and the sewer capacity are far from simple for the East Elmhurst residents.
“We need increased capacity in the sewer line, we need additional rain gardens and other public green infrastructure… just everything they can do to improve,” said Jamaleddine.
It is no surprise that changing the standards for sewer capacity, and potentially doing infrastructure work to meet that standard, incurs a price, one the city might not be so eager to shell out, despite the need.
“That kind of standard change that would need to happen at the city level, citywide, is not a cheap mandate,” Brezler said. “But it is a necessary rationale that we need to undertake.”’
It is unlikely that the city undergoes such a complicated project any time soon, so for the time being, community members will need to deal with some of the issues on their own, Brezler said.
“I think folks have a hard time looking in the mirror and realizing they are a frontline community member,” said Brezler. “Those are some of the hard conversations that our office has to engage in and stand with the community as they accept the hard truth of what climate change means for them, their family and their neighbors.”
Sewer flooding in East Elmhurst results in a large cleanup for locals, who need to throw out nearly everything that got wet due to toxins in the water. Courtesy of Dinu Ahmed
In the meantime
While major fixes are far from being implemented,efforts to help mitigate the issues have begun, including work from the Department of Environmental Protection to clean and inspect sewers to ensure they are working properly.
DEP Commissioner Rit Aggarwala and Deputy Commissioner Beth DeFalco, as well as other operational DEP staff, recently met with Councilmember Shekar Krishnan and Assemblymember Steven Raga to discuss the flooding issues with residents, a DEP spokesperson told the Eagle.
“The conversation outlined the challenges with the city’s current infrastructure, issues caused by increased rainfall due to climate change, and potential future projects that DEP will detail in its upcoming strategic plan,” the spokesperson said. “The talk also touched on what steps residents can take to protect their homes from sewer backups caused by more frequent and severe thunderstorms.”
DEP also offered up other solutions, most of which would incur more personal cost to residents, like installing “back-flow valves” which flow water out, and to elevate toilets, sinks and bathtubs, making them less likely to back up.
However, there might be more help from the city, with the DEP looking at spots in the area that could be locations for rain gardens, which help absorb rain water.
“We can talk about folks having rain barrels in their backyards to capture more of the rain so that that rain doesn't wind up in our sewers during surge time,” said Brezler. “We can also talk about, wherever possible, building more gray and green infrastructure.”
Also, the Small Business Administration will be at an upcoming community meeting to offer low interest loans so that locals can make their homes more resilient though building valves and installing rain gardens.
More traction
Locals say that their call for assistance has been gaining more traction lately, particularly in the wake of last September’s floods. But getting attention hasn’t been easy.
“It does feel like it's an issue of neglect,” said Ahmend. “It also feels like we're being forced to scramble and deal with an issue that's not of our own making because we care a lot about maintaining our homes.”
On Feb. 1, members of the community will be meeting with elected officials, DEP and other agencies to discuss the issues, and look for possible solutions.
For community members, the meeting is also about getting some help before the next storm hits.
Major flooding wasn’t seen in East Elmhurst this past week, when rain and wind threatened to pummel the city. But surviving one rain storm without issue doesn’t do much to quell concern in the neighborhood.
“We dodged a bullet, [but] it could have happened’,” said Ahmed. “We're afraid of what can happen, and so we want to find a way to make it better.”
