Queens remembers Hurricane Ida a year later

Governor Kathy Hochul visited Elmcor to commemorate the one year anniversary of Hurricane Ida and honor a group of local heroes on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022. Photo via Kevin P. Coughlin / Office of Governor Kathy Hochul

By Rachel Vick

City officials gathered across Queens on Thursday to remember the devastation left by Hurricane Ida and to share plans for the future on the one year anniversary of the record-breaking storm.

Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams both celebrated the dedication of Queens residents who they said stepped up, showcasing the resilient spirit of New York.

Hochul led a ceremony at Elmcor in Corona to honor the residents who pitched in to help in the aftermath. In South Ozone Park, Adams outlined plans to bolster future resilience in the fight against the effects of climate change, including flooding.

On Spet. 1, 2021 — less than two weeks after Hurricane Henri, which would normally be a once-in-a-lifetime storm — Ida brought record rainfall to Queens. Homes and infrastructure flooded, with roads turning into rivers and homes under feet of sewage overflow after the city saw three inches of rainfall in an hour.

There were 18 deaths citywide, a bulk of which were Queens residents. Eleven Queens residents died, nearly all of whom were living in basement apartments in Hollis, Woodside and Elmhurst, that flooded quickly during the most intense moments of the storm.

Over the days and weeks that followed, residents worked to air out water damaged property, get their homes cleaned and back online, and try to find a way to move on without a family member or home as they knew it.

At Elmcor, the community center that served as a FEMA command center in the weeks following Ida, Hochul recalled seeing the “shocking” damage and described the stories she heard from affected residents as “horrific.”

There, she celebrated seven heroes, including Elmcor Youth and Adult Activities Executive Director Saeeda Dunston, for their efforts to help others post-Ida.

“Our climate is changed, whether we want to accept that fact or not, we have to be prepared for the very worst,” Hochul said. “In the midst of all this trauma and stress, I saw something extraordinary.”

“I watched people put aside their differences, roll up their sleeves and come together and help their neighbors, friends and strangers,” she added. “They dedicated themselves to people who were hurting more than they were.”

Maynel "Junior" and Jenniffer Moreno from East Elmhurst, who took to the streets and checked on neighbors despite having their own home submerged in water.

Others recognized were Rev. Patrick Young, for helping connect more than parishioners with food and household goods, Laborers Local 79 organizer Tafadar Sourov, who helped the union clear the debris for free, and Yoselin Genao-Estrella, the executive director of Neighborhood Housing Services, who led the organization’s efforts to help residents figure out housing, connect to resources and find grants for repairs.

Adams began with a moment of silence for 13 who died, and the efforts of local heroes like those mentioned by Hochul, before looking ahead.

“Climate change is bringing longer droughts, stronger storms and heavier rainfall to places all over the globe,” Adams said. “We thought we could build higher walls but mother nature showed us it was more than just higher sea levels. This came from rain [in] parts of our city that historically did not deal with flooding was impacted by this rainfall.”

New York City is developing a plan to support existing sewage and stormwater systems with curbside rainwater gardens to prepare for storms of increased intensity.

Rain gardens have the capacity to hold 2,500 gallons of water, and the addition of 2,300 new rain gardens strategically located in areas with flooding are expected to ease the burden on the outdated sewer system.

Cloudburst playgrounds, modeled after rain-absorbing parks in Copenhagen, Denmark, will be built around the city starting with a basketball court at NYCHA’s South Jamaica Houses.

Additional research identifying neighborhoods most at risk of flooding will also be outlined in detail in a sustainability plan the mayor’s office will release in April.

Dr. Eric Sanderson, a senior conservation ecologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, conducts research focusing on how some of the vulnerable inland neighborhoods are potentially the sites of waterways and wetlands dried up or covered by development. His insight will inform the city’s expansion of the Bluebelt program, which uses waterways to naturally filter stormwater then directed to the harbor.

Borough President Dononvan Richards was at both events, reflecting on the lingering impact of the storm on the borough and the environmental racism in development that contributed to sewage infrastructure lagging behind the heavy rainfall.

“The wound is still bleeding – Hurricane Ida showed us the true power of mother nature and how unprepared for her wrath we are,” Richards said. “We are in desperate need of new gray and green infrastructure across the five boroughs to resist the onslaught of climate change, and investments like these are critical steps in that push.“

On the state level, Hochul and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority announced a new program to distribute $6.5 million in funding to applicants with insurance ideas, products, and services, like insurance for residential and commercial renewable energy projects.

The proposals will need to support efforts to meet the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act goal of reducing carbon emissions 85 percent by 2050.

Earlier this week, Hochul released a proposed Action Plan by the Governor's Office of Storm Recovery to strengthen the most vulnerable communities, collecting public input to repair the damage from Hurricane Ida and better prepare localities like Queens for a future marked by climate change.

But some efforts by Queens residents to recoup their losses from the storm have fallen flat.

Last month, the city’s comptroller denied all 4,703 claims that alleged that the city’s poor sewage maintenance led to the flooding damage, THE CITY first reported.

The comptroller’s office said the city wasn’t responsible for damage from “extraordinary and excessive rainfalls,” citing precedent set by a case decided over 100 years ago.