To mark the start of hurricane season, close to 100 homeowners, tenants, and community leaders gathered in Gowanus several weeks ago to prepare for another summer of floods.
On Monday, Brooklyn was issued flash flood warnings and hit with a day-long deluge of rain. Parts of the borough, including Coney Island, were submerged in several inches of water.
The June 9 flood preparedness town hall, hosted by the Department of Environmental Protection and the Gowanus Oversight Task Force, gave residents the opportunity to learn about the flood mitigation developments in progress across Gowanus, as well as the measures they can take in their homes to protect against heavy storms.
Attendees who live in basement units were also given free flood preparedness kits, which included roughly $300 worth of mitigation equipment. It included a flood sensor to detect incoming water, a sump pump to push floodwater outdoors, flood barriers to place near doors and basement windows, and drain and toilet plugs to prevent sewage back-ups.
DEP Deputy Commissioner Beth DeFalco said Gowanus was especially prone to floods, and that those floods have only worsened due to climate change. The neighborhood also has a large number of houses with basement units that predate FEMA’s flood protection standards. The city's combined sewage system, where wastewater and stormwater travel through the same pipes, is easily overloaded when rain falls. When that happens, untreated wastewater has nowhere to go but out into the Gowanus, or up into residents’ toilets and drains, DeFalco said.
Josephine Guevarra, who was born on the same Gowanus block where she now lives, found two feet of water in her basement during Hurricane Ida, the first time she experienced flooding like that.
“Everything was gone in the basement,” she said. “Insurance didn’t cover it either.”
In step with Gowanus’s accelerating residential development, the DEP is advancing a number of infrastructure projects to mitigate the impacts of flooding, including sewer upgrades surrounding 4th Street and Carroll Street. The DEP is also looking to install a dedicated storm sewer to reduce the load on the combined sewage system there.
On the Gowanus Canal itself, two enormous underground tanks are being built to capture and temporarily store excess combined sewage during storms, preventing harmful wastewater from being dumped into the canal. The sewer overflow facilities, which are being developed as a part of the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund Program, will create four new acres of public space upon their completion in 2029, according to the DEP.
The public initiatives in progress in Gowanus will bolster the resiliency of surrounding neighborhoods, said Jonathan Cohn, a Park Slope resident and member of the Gowanus Oversight Task Force. The task force has been working to ensure that the commitments put forth by the 2021 Gowanus Neighborhood Plan are implemented expeditiously and equitably. Many of those commitments relate directly to flood mitigation.
In the meantime, DeFalco armed residents with a checklist of actions they can immediately take to make their homes resilient to storms.
Residents should know their evacuation route, and if you live in a basement unit, identify your exit path and make sure it's clear and unobstructed, she said. New Yorkers should place their valuables on a shelf, well above where water might rise. During a storm, avoid using the tap to lower the risk of backups, she added.
Standard homeowners and renters insurance typically do not cover costs related to flood damage, DeFalco said. She encouraged residents with homes prone to flooding to look into FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program, as well as the programs offered by American Water Resources.
DEP officials also encouraged attendees to share their tools with neighbors.
“Flood prep preparedness is not just a government responsibility,” said DEP Commissioner Lisa Garcia. “It's a community effort.”
