“NYC Flooding” by Ruanon is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

The Floods of Friday, September 29 in New York City

On Friday, September 29th in New York City, the city underwent preventable flooding.

I have lived in New York City for nearly a decade. I have lived in Woodside, Queens; St. George, Staten Island; Bed Stuy, Brooklyn; the Lower East Side of Manhattan; and most recently, Prospect Park, Brooklyn.

I have lived all over. And I have NEVER seen a failure of New York City public service like I had seen on Friday, September 29th. The rain wasn’t even that bad on Friday, September 29th. When it rains for long periods, 24 hours or more, NYC workers are called in ahead of time to monitor drain grates in New York City to make sure that they don’t get clogged and cause flash flooding. As long as the drain grates don’t get clogged, it is nearly impossible for the streets to flood. Some train stations will always flood. Some train stations are underground pools that will fill with water with rain. But when the train stations flood, as long as the street grate drains are cleared, then the streets don’t flood, and the city calls in off-service bus drivers to drive buses from each train stop, thereby giving train service via bus.

Essentially when rain happens, the city brings in off-duty city waste management workers to monitor the grate drains. And the city brings in off-duty bus drivers to run the train routes by bus…