Saturday, 29, 2023
The recent (Friday 28, 2023) storms which overwhelmed N Y City with heavy rain, flood water flowing into basements, pouring down into subways and pooling up into hip-deep water in low places stranding cars, busses and trucks. Subway trains were stalled and service suspended on ten different Transit lines. Even flights at JFK and LaGuardia were detained by the downpour. At LaGuardia, the historic Marine Air Terminal was flooded and forced to close.
Nearly 8 inches of rain fell at Kennedy Airport. In Brooklyn, about 4.5 inches fell in three hours (a rate of 1.5 inches per hour) In Central Park rain fell at a rate of about 1.9 inches per hour. Over most of the City, between 6 to 8 inches accumulated over a 24 hour period.
As expected, the “climate catastrophists” were quick to blame this bad “weather” on the warming “climate” (a process which has been going on now for 17,000 years, since the glaciers departed.) Our climate is warming —the Earth is in a natural warming cycle. But there is no doubt that humans are also responsible for pumping massive amounts of heat absorbing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But we can not blame all natural and human phenomena on this one very popular environmental cause. The natural world is more complex than that. As we will see below, recent storms in the present El Nino cycle are more powerful and dangerous. But in this case, we must not ignore other human factors which are very obvious contributors.
What about the City? About 72% of the NY City is covered with impervious concrete or asphalt, or is covered by homes or buildings. Heavy rainfall can not recharge into the ground, and seep downward, but must be directed along impervious surfaces into sewers and drains to avoid floods. For this purpose New York City is more than adequately covered by a combined sewer and storm water drain system composed of 7,500 miles of subsurface pipes and tunnels which carry the storm and waste water . Most of the sewers (60 %) carry rainfall from storms directly into the City’s surrounding rivers and harbors. In recent years an area along the coast (the “Bluebelt”) was designed and installed to capture sewer water and treat it before it is discharged.
The City’s sewage system was engineered to adequately discharge rain water from a “once in five 5 year storm” having a rate of rainfall at @1.75 inches of rain per hour or almost at a rate of 2 inches per hour. Though rain a accumulated over the City over the 24 hour period at 6 to 8 inches. Such accumulations are obviously less than the 1.75 inches per hour.
Thus the City’s sewer and drain system is more than adequate to prevent street and subway flooding from the vast majority of storms that may develop over the City’s skies. The Friday storm had rates of downpour that were at or well below the rate of flow that the system is designed for. So why all the flooding?
However this most effective system is NOT designed to swallow up big plastic bags of floating garbage, cardboard boxes, old food containers, plastics, and human generated debris. The system was originally designed to carry away only sewage and surface water.
The City has over 100,000 illegal immigrants living rough on the streets all of which produce solid waste. Piles of 50 gallon black garbage bags, old packing, styrofoam, stacks of cardboard on every corner and in-front of each business are legendary. These piles were left for the storm to float away and clog sewer drains.
During this Friday’s storm these plastics, cardboard boxes and other solids simply were floated away and carried along to the nearest sewer grate where the strong current pulled the solids to the grate and obstructed and clogged the water flow. Over a very short period rain water accumulated into hip deep ponds with rafts of floating cardboard, bags of garbage and other human generated debris on its oily surface. Let’s put the blame where it belongs…poor preparation for the storm, too many people, too much waste, and too much trash and garbage left on the streets!
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