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RELEASES: Hochul briefings on Thursday, September 2, 2021 following flash flooding in Manhattan, Queens, Long Island, with de Blasio, Schumer, other officials. Transcripts Youtube videos from three events, including 1st Q&A
NYSNYS News


For Immediate Release: 9/2/2021
GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL


VIDEO, PHOTOS & RUSH TRANSCRIPT: GOVERNOR HOCHUL RECOGNIZES ESSENTIAL WORKERS FOR HEROIC SERVICE AT FRESH POND BUS DEPOT IN QUEENS

Governor Hochul: "I want to tell you how grateful we are for your bravery, your courage, and the fact that you're back here again. We need to get her out to her job because she's got a shift to undertake, but Rosa, from all of us here in the State of New York and the City of New York, you represent the great individuals who are members of TWU, who show up every single day and continue to do your work even in the most adverse circumstances and I, as governor of the State of New York representing over 20 million people, say from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for being there for us and thank you for what you did last night in particular, literally saving the lives of people who if they've been in the streets may not have survived the experience."

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul recognized essential workers, including bus driver Rosa Amonte, at the Fresh Pond Bus Depot in Queens for their heroic service in the aftermath of historic flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida.

VIDEO is available on YouTube here.

PHOTOS available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's and Rosa's remarks is available below:

Governor Hochul: This is one of many stops we've been conducting to survey the damage and to find out how we can be helpful to people in various communities and I'm here at the Fresh Pond Depot because an extraordinary person is standing here with me, an individual who represents New York's greatest individuals, the people who you don't see every day but they're out there making sure we get where we have to go, home to our families, getting to our jobs, and these are our transit workers. These are our bus drivers. These are people who run the subways. I know we all call everybody heroes, but to me you are God's gift to all of us, the work that you do, and I want to thank the transit workers. There's 145,000 members overall, 41,000 members of TWU100. Their leadership is extraordinary and I want to thank all of them for being there in some of our darkest hours, going to your jobs, not forgetting your responsibilities and taking care of other people when it's a lot easier for you to be home in the safety of your own family and making sure they're okay.

So I want to acknowledge, Grace Meng was going to join us. I think a lot of people are still stuck in traffic because the roads are not perfect yet, but she and also Donovan Richards may maybe joining us, but Senator Joe Addabbo has joined us.



There's someone here, Janno Lieber, we've been at events all morning surveying the damage.

We just came in from Great Neck to see what's happening on the tracks there with the LIRR. We are over in another part of Queens earlier today to talk about the devastation in one community there. There was a loss of life. So I'm just beginning my in-person tours and I want to remind everybody that this situation is still unfolding.

We don't have all the damage assessments, but President Biden and I spoke just a few hours ago. He has promised his full support. He said, Kathy, tell me what you need and we'll get it done. So that gives me great assurance.

But today we're going to not talk about the larger picture at this particular event. I want to celebrate one individual. An individual who did not intend to be an overnight viral sensation, but I'm sure your three daughters and grandkids think that you're pretty cool right now. And that is someone whose name is Rosa Amonte. Rosa did something that is absolutely, unbelievably heroic. During the depths of our greatest time last night, when it was scary, you saw the images, if you were living at your house. People are literally driving down rivers. Many vehicles were abandoned. People fled for their lives, but people still needed to get where they had to go and get to the safety of their homes.

And how do they get there? When the subways are shut down, it was the bus drivers, the bus operators who never left their posts.

They sat there, they welcomed riders in, they took care of them. They gave them the assurance that I'm going to take care of you and I'm going to protect you. I'm going to get you where you're going. And I want everyone who's not seen this video to watch this and that will deepen your appreciation for people like Rosa Amonte, for what she did.

She drove passengers through three to four feet of water. I watched that video. The water was not on the street. The water was in the vehicle. The water was in the bus. People are literally standing on their seats to make sure that they did not drown inside a bus. Can you imagine the terror that people experienced in that moment? But she didn't pull over and say, I'm out of here, I'm going home. She stood there. She drove, she went through the night and did what it took to get people there safely.

So I want to tell you how grateful we are for your bravery, your courage, and the fact that you're back here again. We need to get her out to her job because she's got a shift to undertake, but Rosa, from all of us here in the State of New York and the City of New York, you represent the great individuals who are members of TWU, who show up every single day and continue to do your work even in the most adverse circumstances and I, as governor of the State of New York representing over 20 million people, say from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for being there for us and thank you for what you did last night in particular, literally saving the lives of people who if they've been in the streets may not have survived the experience.

So Rosa, come on up and say hello for a couple moments. I want to thank you for what you did. Let's give a round of applause.

Rosa Amonte: Hello, good afternoon. My name is Rosa Amonte. I worked in transit for eight years. I represent all my coworkers and not only me, just everybody was outside with that water that was flowing. The only thing in that moment was to take passengers to a safe place. I don't even see the water in my bus. I don't even see the people over their seat. My only thing, I just think I'm going to go throw this water. I'm going to take my passengers to the other side. And this is the only thing. Everybody is a hero here. All my coworkers are heroes here because we are doing every day for the community, to the people, we're just happy to serve. Right? Thank you.

Governor Hochul: That was beautiful. Thank you.

****



For Immediate Release: 9/2/2021
GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL


VIDEO, AUDIO, PHOTOS & RUSH TRANSCRIPT: GOVERNOR HOCHUL PROVIDES UPDATE ON STORM RECOVERY EFFORTS FROM LONG ISLAND

Governor Hochul: "One thing I want to make clear: we're not treating this as if it's not going to happen again for 500 years. What we saw, the record rainfall that precipitated, the situation out here in Great Neck as well as what we've seen all the way from here to Suffolk to the five boroughs to Rockland to Putnam to Westchester, it was an unbelievable amount of rainfall in an incredibly short amount out of time."

Hochul: "We know how to build resiliency. ... Many of our coastal areas are in a far better place to be able to handle the wind and wave action. ... But what we're not prepared for and what I'm not satisfied with, what's happening on our streets at the higher elevations. ... The raging flood waters cannot be contained by the existing storm sewers and drainage systems, and then the flood starts going into our subway system. That's what happened here. It happened all over Long Island. It happened in New York City and our surrounding counties. That's what we have to address."

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul provided an update on storm recovery efforts from Long Island and emphasized the urgent need for more resilient infrastructure to protect New York communities from storm damage.

VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of today's remarks is available here.

PHOTOS will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us as we continue our survey of storm effects and also now the cleanup and what I was just witnessing moments ago was an extraordinary effort by the incredible team literally a few feet away who worked through this morning and through the night to try and restore service here on Long Island and Nassau County and here in the Great Neck Station.

The Port Washington Line has been disrupted considerably and they are working tirelessly to restore the tracks so they are safe once again and they anticipate in the next few hours they'll be able to make some announcements on that timing so that's something I just saw, but I want to thank the incredible leaders who are with me here today.

Janno Lieber first of all - I've been on the job a week and we've already had some other shutdowns and disasters and I feel very confident in his leadership. This is not my first disaster. I have been handling these for many decades as a local official and a member of Congress and as lieutenant governor, but also the decades of experience that these individuals bring to it, so i have confidence in the MTA to get things restored.

Phillip Eng, the president of Long Island Rail Road who is working day and night to make sure we restore service to thousands of commuters.

Our Nassau County Executive Laura Curran who's been a friend and a partner through so many years and her great service to this community is never taken for granted. She's done an amazing job here as well and thank you for your immediate response in this in the aftermath of this incredible storm.

Senator Anna Kaplan, we were together in our State Capitol yesterday working on relief for our renters and landlords and had to come down immediately to be able to address another crisis situation.

Also want to recognize our Mayor Ted Rosen is here. Thank you mayor for joining us and the deputy mayor of Great Neck Village is here as well and I think I got all my elected officials.

What we saw last night was nothing short of unprecedented. I cannot imagine a community having gone through this before. In fact we were told it was a 500-year event. I'm not sure how they know that; I'm not sure who was here 500 years ago to tell us that but that is the scale we're talking about.

One thing I want to make clear: we're not treating this as if it's not going to happen again for 500 years. What we saw, the record rainfall that precipitated, the situation out here in Great Neck as well as what we've seen all the way from here to Suffolk to the five boroughs to Rockland to Putnam to Westchester, it was an unbelievable amount of rainfall in an incredibly short amount out of time.

We're talking about literally from 8:50 p.m. to 9:50 p.m. last night, a record shattering rainfall, at LaGuardia, JFK, at Central Park. Records are broken, but what is fascinating is that the records that they broke were literally set a week before. That's what we're dealing with now, my friends, so when we talk about how is this happening, people have been warning for decades that the effect of climate change and what it would do to our communities - it's happening right now. It is not a future threat. It is a current situation and it is the status quo.

We know how to build resiliency. We saw that particular here on Long Island after Superstorm Sandy. Many of our coastal areas are in a far better place to be able to handle the wind and wave action. I just was down last week in anticipating the onslaught of Hurricane Henri. I was on the beaches and I saw what we had done to build up.

But what we're not prepared for and what I'm not satisfied with, what's happening on our streets at the higher elevations. They're not able to sustain the effect a flash floods. Flash floods are now coming. It is not waves off the ocean or off the sound. It is flash floods coming from the sky. It was literally Niagara Falls here and I've been in Niagara Falls a thousand times. That's what the staircase looked like here. What we have to do next is to immediately assess loss of life and there has sadly been the loss of nine New Yorkers as a result of this horrific storm. And I cannot imagine a family that said good night to someone yesterday or saw them go off in their car and know that they're safe in their home to find out the next morning they're no longer with us because of Mother Nature and her fury. It is absolutely heartbreaking to fathom that experience and we want to protect human life as much as possible.

We also are concerned about the damages. A short distance from here the flooding in basements, people's most prized possessions washed away, family photos of their babies. I lost pictures of my kids when they were born in floods myself. I know how sad this can be. Our businesses have been affected.

So what I want to send to them as a message, what we're doing here on the ground is doing assessments and you'll get a complete report from our leadership at the Long Island Rail Road as well as local leaders in a few moments in the MTA. But my overall strategy is this: We deal with the immediate crisis. It's not quite over but we're getting there. We remediate to protect life and property, which is going on right now, which is why these incredible crews under the leadership of Anthony Simon and all of the transit workers at SMART are doing an incredible, incredible job. They're tireless and I'm so impressed by them. We deal with the immediate situation. Then I start asking the questions. Did we have enough warning? Did we let people know? Should we shut down subways earlier? Was there a breakdown in communication with the weather systems? Were we prepared enough? I am going to intensely asked those questions, get the answers, and when I get that, I will share that with the public because every crisis is an opportunity to learn and to improve and to be more prepared for the next one.

I've been to countless physical disasters, natural disasters, and so that's approach I'm going to take. That's in the short term. The long term is how do we get more infrastructure dollars to communities like this. And I want to tell you: I just spoke to President Biden in the last hour. I was with Senator Schumer. Members of the delegation. They are 100 percent committed to working to bring those dollars home to do long-overdue improvements to the areas that you don't even see. You don't even see on the street like this where it can be compromised when you get a flash flood situation. The raging flood waters cannot be contained by the existing storm sewers and drainage systems, and then the flood starts going into our subway system. That's what happened here. It happened all over Long Island. It happened in New York City and our surrounding counties. That's what we have to address.

That is the long-term answer to building up and the other long-term answer is doing whatever we can in our power to continue to fight that climate change -continue to transition to carbon-neutral energy to make sure that we're doing everything we can. And I'm 100 percent committed to ensuring that New York continues to lead the way in a clean energy future that will protect our environment. We have no choice, my friend. The future we spoke about in dire terms? That future is now. It's happening now. We're losing lives, we're losing property, and we cannot continue on this path.

So that is a sense of urgency that I'm bringing to this situation, and I want to thank everyone for attending. Thanking the homeowners and the businesses for hanging in there. I deployed the Department of Financial Services to bring out teams in-person to help people file their claims for insurance. I told insurance companies to get ready. I don't want delays. I want your claim adjusters out there meeting with property owners right now to get money to them.

And I also lastly, I want to tell you that President Biden assured me that anything we ask for he will grant, so we're doing our FEMA assessments almost immediately to determine the scope of the expenses that have been incurred by municipalities and state government as well as homeowners and businesses. We put together that package and I fully anticipate that will exceed the 30-million-dollar threshold in order to apply for FEMA funds and then the president said the second he gets it he'll sign it and make it happen so the money can start flowing to give us relief. That was the commitment I received from President Biden He said Kathy, whatever you need I'm there. So I will take that to heart and I know that he means that sincerely and I just want to at this time thank everyone again for coming out turned and I will turn it over to Janno Lieber, our leader at the MTA and thank him for everything he's done. A lot of sleepless nights. It just never seems to stop. I've always said sleep is overrated, so I'm sure you're going to be just fine. Don't worry about us.

****



For Immediate Release: 9/2/2021
GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL


VIDEO, AUDIO, PHOTOS & RUSH TRANSCRIPT: GOVERNOR HOCHUL DIRECTS STATE AGENCIES TO DEPLOY ADDITIONAL ASSETS DOWNSTATE TO ASSIST LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN WAKE OF HISTORIC STORM AND FLOODING EVENT

Region in State of Emergency After Remnants of Hurricane Ida Pummel Hudson Valley, NYC Metro and Long Island Areas with More than Eight Inches of Rain, Flash Floods, Power Outages and Impacts to Transportation Systems

Numerous State Highways Remain Closed in New York City and Hudson Valley Regions; MTA Service Currently Suspended or Limited due to Heavy Rainfall and Flooding

State Fire, State Police, State Park Police, DEC Participated in Approximately 100 Rescues in Rockland and Westchester Counties

Read Executive Order Here

Governor Hochul: "We're here today because of a devastating storm that shocked the people of this city. And even the morning after, we're still uncovering the true depth of the loss. The human loss, which is hard to imagine, that people simply in their cars, in their homes, in their basements, succumb to the ravages of a brutal storm, and their families must just be in such pain this morning. So to all of them, we offer our love, our condolences and our wishes for their healing. And we'll be there to support them."

Hochul: "Moments ago, I was on the phone with the White House. President Biden called, offered any assistance, he repeated, any assistance that the State of New York needs. I told him we'll take him up on that, and what happens, next, we'll be doing on-the-ground assessments of the damage with the FEMA teams, our local partners, and making sure we get a true accounting of the loss, but he promised that he'll guarantee, he said, I guaranteed you, I will approve any declaration you need, emergency declaration, so we can get the money flowing to New York, to our municipalities, to our cities, to our citizens, the businesses affected and certainly to the homeowners."

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul visited areas impacted by the storm and directed additional State agency assets to the Hudson Valley, New York City and Long Island regions to help communities recover after the remnants of Hurricane Ida passed through the Downstate area Wednesday night and delivered historic rainfall totals, sparking flash floods, power outages and life-threatening conditions in several areas. Multiple roadways across New York City, Long Island and the lower Mid-Hudson were flooded and impassible at times, with people rescued from vehicles trapped in floodwaters. Public transit in New York City was brought to a standstill as trains and subways were affected by flooding in several locations overnight. Rainfall rates of up to three inches per hour, the highest ever recorded by the NYS Mesonet, were experienced across multiple locations, with rainfall totals ultimately exceeding eight inches in Central Park and more than six inches at LaGuardia Airport.

New York State swift water rescue crews worked through the night along with local first responders to rescue and evacuate New Yorkers in need. State Fire, State Police and the Department of Environmental Conservation alone participated in approximately 100 rescues in Rockland and Westchester counties. If a homeowner is flooded out of home, people in need of shelter will be supported by the Red Cross or community-based shelters.

VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of today's remarks is available here.

PHOTOS will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning. I want to thank the individuals who've joined us here this morning. Senator Schumer, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Congressman Meeks, our Borough President Donovan Richards, as well as Borough President Adams. We're here today because of a devastating storm that shocked the people of this city. And even the morning after, we're still uncovering the true depth of the loss. The human loss, which is hard to imagine, that people simply in their cars, in their homes, in their basements, succumb to the ravages of a brutal storm, and their families must just be in such pain this morning. So to all of them, we offer our love, our condolences and our wishes for their healing. And we'll be there to support them.

And this is all precipitated by last night's record-shattering rainfall. And what's so fascinating is that the records that were broken in Central Park, for example, 3.15 inches in one hour, it broke a record literally set one week earlier. That says to me that there are no more cataclysmic, unforeseeable events. We need it foresee these in advance and be prepared. And we learned a lot of lessons. From Sandy, we built back resiliency, our coastal shorelines are in much better shape than they had been, but where we have a vulnerability is in our streets, with the higher elevations now, where the flash floods, which were unknown before, this is the first time we've had a flash flood event of this proportion in the City of New York and in the outlying areas, we haven't experienced this before, but we should expect it the next time. And that means we have to continue investments in infrastructure, working in partnership with our federal government and support from Senator Schumer and President Biden. We're working so hard, so hard, to get the infrastructure dollars back to our state so we can build this up, working in partnership with the Mayor and other officials to work collaboratively and get this done so we can take care of the drainage shortcomings in our streets because when the streets get flooded, what happens next?

The water rushes down, not just through the highways, but also finds its way to penetrate our subway system. And as a result, what happened yesterday, trains were shut down. People were stranded. The fear that they must have experienced when this occurred I cannot imagine, and I don't want this to happen again. So what we're doing yesterday in preparation, we directed all of our state resources to be prepared. Our DOT, Thruway Authority, MTA, Port Authority, all of our first responders embedded with the local teams here and throughout Long Island, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Putnam, Rockland counties, all of those have suffered some form of loss. We wanted to make sure our crews were on the ground. We also have pumping systems in place taking care of the subways, literally removing the water physically.

And I want to thank, first of all, everyone who was involved last night. But our transit workers are heroes, especially all the bus operators who had to be deployed to literally take people from stations to where they needed to go. So it's an extraordinary rescue operation, just a few short hours ago.

Moments ago, I was on the phone with the White House. President Biden called, offered any assistance, he repeated, any assistance that the State of New York needs. I told him we'll take him up on that, and what happens, next, we'll be doing on-the-ground assessments of the damage with the FEMA teams, our local partners, and making sure we get a true accounting of the loss, but he promised that he'll guarantee, he said, I guaranteed you, I will approve any declaration you need, emergency declaration, so we can get the money flowing to New York, to our municipalities, to our cities, to our citizens, the businesses affected and certainly to the homeowners.

And also with respect to the homeowners who have experience the flooding in their own basements, I've directed the Department of Financial Services to be in contact immediately with our insurance providers so they get people on the ground, show up in these neighborhoods, get your claims adjusters, let them start filing to get reimbursed for the damages. We have mobile units on the ground to this end as well.

So right now we still have limited services on the subway. I'll be heading out to Long Island to see some damage that occurred out there shortly. Metro-North, LIRR and the subway systems are not fully functioning at this time, but I want people to stay engaged following the information and to make sure that they stay safe.

I want to conclude by saying once again, New Yorkers show what they're made out of. The collaboration that was going on, the constant communication between our teams is something that perhaps you don't see in the public, but it's real. It makes a difference and it helps save lives and I want to thank our partners at the state level as well, State Police and our rescue teams that had a rescue over 100 people in Westchester and Rockland County alone.

So this is the scenario as we speak today, but I'll be giving continued reports. What I wanted to do first was assess where we are today, but my next question, is where are we going next? How do we prevent this from happening? How do we get money and resources to the places and build up the resiliency in streets. Before we worried about the coastal areas.

Now it's about what's happening in the streets, the drainage systems that need to be enhanced and all the resilience it can bed, because of climate change, unfortunately this is something we're going to have to deal with great regularity and we want to assure all New Yorkers that were prepared for this and we'll do everything we can in our power to protect human life and property. Thank you very much.

****

For Immediate Release: 9/2/2021
GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL


RUSH TRANSCRIPT: GOVERNOR HOCHUL TAKES QUESTIONS IN QUEENS AFTER PROVIDING UPDATE ON STORM RECOVERY EFFORTS

Earlier today in Queens, Governor Kathy Hochul took questions from the press after providing an update on storm recovery efforts.

A rush transcript is available below:

Question: [inaudible]

Governor Hochul: Excellent questions. Those are my questions this morning when I spoke to the leadership at the MTA. Here's what we need to do. We need to identify the areas where we have vulnerabilities on our streets, where the drainage systems are not functioning properly and they're close to the entrance of a subway and we need to be able to fix those first so we don't get a situation where the drainage system, the sewer system, can't handle the volume, and then the water just creates a river down the steps and into the subway system. I think that's our first priority. I know that's my first priority. So I want to also have an after action report on this. What did we know and when did we know what information we had? What information do we have? Were there any intelligence failures in terms of our preparedness? I know I deployed resources yesterday morning, but we did not know that between 8:50 and 9:50 PM last night, that the heavens would literally open up and bring Niagara Falls level water to the streets of New York. Could that have been anticipated? I want to find out. Is that something we should have known in advance? And the question is, should we have shutdown subways earlier. You have to realize many people were already on the subways. We shut them down, they're trapped underground. That is not an option, but I want to assess why we don't stop people from, new passengers from going down the stairs into them. It should be all about evacuation, not bringing new people into the system at the time. And your first question was?

Question: [inaudible]

Governor Hochul: Yeah, there were storm warnings, tornado warnings throughout the evening. But I don't see whether or not more could have been done. That's a good question.

Question: Governor Hochul, I have two questions. Can you talk about any damage at MTA railyards? The second question is for Mayor de Blasio.

Governor Hochul: Yeah, we have damage. We have damage and I'm going to be out visiting some of the sites right now, and we'll be embedded with FEMA personnel. This is what happens first - everything has to settle down, stabilize, make sure we're protecting life and property. Job number one. Number two, within a few days, we'd go out there with the FEMA crews, literally add up the extent of the damage, file for our declaration with the federal government. And this has been, President Biden assured me, he said, Kathy, I'm going to do this for you. You tell me what you need. So we're prepared to take all those steps starting right now.

Question: And for Mayor de Blasio, we just heard from a neighborhood who says they have been asking for help about the sewers. Can you explain why the floods [inaudible]. It's not even a flood zone, people couldn't get out, they weren't notified.

Mayor de Blasio: Let me get our DEP Commissioner, I think is here, Vinnie Sapienza, he can speak to the specifics, have him come over. Look, as you heard from Congressman Meeks and from Borough President Richards and Council Member Miller. Over the last few years, we made a $2 billion investment in addressing the infrastructure problems in Southeast Queens, including the sewer problems. This is a tragically very long-standing problem and one of the things that became clear was we were going to have to make an extraordinary investment to address it. As you've heard, that investment is having impact, but it's not complete. It's been going on for years. It will take some more years to finish. In terms of the impact of the investments here in this immediate area, Commissioner Vinnie Sapienza, DEP.

Commissioner Sapienza: Thanks mayor. So a couple of things, one is that the rate of rainfall that occurred was just really extraordinary. Council Member Miller mentioned that the storm we had, you know, a couple of weeks ago with the remnants of Henri, which is about the same total amount of rainfall that fell, but this all fell really within a very short window, few hours. And I think that was a big difference. As the mayor said, you know, we, we recognize in this area of Southeast Queens an investment was needed. It was long overdue. The mayor announced a $2 billion commitment a few years back, and that work is well underway.

Question: How do you explain flooding in Woodside and Forest Hills that caused people to die?

Commissioner Sapienza: Yeah. So we're going to do that full hydraulic. But rainfall rates were really extraordinary and far exceeded the capacity of the system. Anything over two inches an hour, we're going to have trouble with.

Question: Can I just follow up on Steven's question because you were all talking -and governor, for you, but all of you as well, you were talking about how this was a warning call and a warning. But the fact is, we've been having these event and the people here are talking about how they happen all the time. We've had two hurricane in the last couple of days. You're talking about the need for investment. What do you think about the people who are here right now aren't sure that the next time it rains a lot that they're not going to be in the same position that they were in the last time?

Governor Hochul: I have been to so many catastrophic flooding events from Lake Ontario to Long Island to now, to the city. So, no, this is not unusual anymore. Anyone who says it's once in a century -once in 500 years -I don't. I'm not buying it. This has to be considered the normal course of business. So we need to take steps to prepare.

We should have evacuation plans that every single homeowner knows about what you do when the water starts rising. Is our communication system adequate to let people know in homes and on subways that this is dangerous. Are alerts going out on people's cell phones? How do we communicate? And are we doing a good enough job. Because I'm not going to stand here and guarantee it won't happen again tomorrow. I don't know. But I know we need to do much more in our resiliency, addressing climate change. And we have an aggressive program that I'm going to even take to the next level. But that's long-term. That's not going to help the people on the street. I'm not going to pretend it will. What I'm talking about is letting them know we've got their backs. We'll help them heal. We'll get them the resources from the federal government once they get that declaration and let them know we're not satisfied either. This is not OK with any of us.

Mayor de Blasio: And let me, hold on. Let me add, let me add, let me add. Excuse me, Governor. Gloria to your question: I think we now understand that every attempt at projection bluntly is failing us. Let's be clear. We're getting from the very best experts, projections that then are made a mockery of in a matter of minutes. What I want to work with the governor on and by her comments, you can see she's already there -we need to start communicating to people that we should assume things are going to be much worse in literally every situation. Yesterday morning, the report was three to six inches over the course of the whole day, which was not a particularly problematic amount. That turned into the biggest single hour of rainfall in New York city history with almost no warning.

So now we've got to change ground rules. From now on what I think we do is tell New Yorkers to expect the very, very worst. It may sound alarmist at times, but unfortunately, it's being proven by nature. The infrastructure investments look, $2 billion to Southeast Queens, is a big deal. But what we're seeing is we're going to need more than we ever possibly imagined.

Thank God for the first time in our lifetimes almost, the federal government is finally truly committed to infrastructure spending. But I don't think it's too little too late, I think would have helped us a hell of a lot more a few decades ago, but we're going to be playing a lot of catch up, but we're talking not billions, tens of billions, even hundreds of billions to really be able to make people safe.

Council Member Miller: Let me just say something on that: The $3.5 trillion that we're trying to get through in the reconciliation bill is to deal just with that. That's why that's such a big issue in Washington, DC. Not just the 1.8 for infrastructure, but when we're talking about climate change and when you're talking about housing, when you're talking about making sure that we have the resilience for the future, not for today, just for the day, but for the future, we must get this $3.5 trillion bill done, and that's Washington DC, and we're coming together to do that.

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor de Blasio: Who are you asking? Do you have the specifics?

Commissioner Shea: Just first, our hearts go out to all the victims. It's an unimaginable loss for New York City and Queens right now. And we pray that the number does not go up further. We have nine confirmed victims. Eight of the nine victims are in the borough of Queens. Eight of the nine victims also took place in residential homes, in basements. The latest victim that we have is an, individual that passed away after a vehicle accident on the Grand Central Parkway. And that individual was discovered in the backseat of the car within the last hour. So again, we pray that the number does not go up from there and, and certainly in the NYPD and all city workers, our hearts go out to all the victims to this terrible tragedy.

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