The deaths of 13 people, all but two of whom lived in basement apartments during New York City's catastrophic flooding this week, with city officials looking to bolster evacuation efforts for vulnerable residents in extreme weather.
The rapid rainfall inundated residences away from the city's coastline not prone to flooding, damaging scores of homes and turning at least six basement apartments into death traps.
"What we saw in some of these basement apartments on Wednesday was people need to be evacuated who are far away from the coast, because of the sheer intensity and speed, the amount of rain that came in such a brief period of time," he said, calling this extreme weather"a whole new ballgame." "We need to have an absolute accounting of all of them and then we can apply these door-to-door techniques if we need to," he said."We've got to have a clear database to work from and certainly begin with knowing the areas, which we do know, where they are prevalent."A man who gave his name as John, helps clean a friend's basement, Sept. 3, 2021 in Queens, N.Y.
Five of the six apartments where 11 people died during the storm were illegally converted cellar and basement apartments, according to the city's buildings department. Four of them were in Queens and one in Brooklyn. The lone legal basement apartment was in Queens, where a 48-year-old woman was found unconscious and unresponsive at a home near Corona.
On Friday, New York Attorney General Letitia James called on the city to provide emergency housing vouchers to all New Yorkers living in unregulated basement apartments, as extreme weather events have become"the rule, not the exception" due to climate change.
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