Dean Meminger:
All right. Mayor Eric Adams joins us from City Hall right now. Mayor Adams, thank you for taking time out for New York One this evening.
Mayor Eric Adams:
Thank you. Good to speak with you.
Meminger:
All right. Why don't you bring us up to speed? Where do we stand right now with this state of emergency across the five boroughs?
Mayor Adams:
Well, the state of emergency, it plays several dynamics. Number one, you know, with the damage we're going to have to ask for assistance, particularly with FEMA as we come back. We have downgraded from a storm warning to a storm watch. We're seeing the water start to recede. I was out early this morning in Canarsie, Sheepshead Bay, Flatbush parts of Prospect Heights, and we were dealing with some real serious flooding conditions.
These are record levels. We have to understand that that water was coming down at an alarming level, but New Yorkers and first responders really responded appropriately. We were able to navigate our way through this. We are not out of the storm yet because it's raining this evening, that's expected, but kudos to New York City residents and the first responders for doing their job.
Meminger:
Mm‑hmm. Now, you mentioned some neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Do you have a list so far or are you still going over what neighborhoods or streets had the most flooding or the most severe problems?
Mayor Adams:
Well, it was very interesting. You know, we normally and traditionally have water issues along the BQE, but I was surprised to see the amount of water in Prospect Heights around the Prospect Park area. And you are always concerned because you have subway stations that's in that location as well.
But areas in the Bronx as well, some of the outer boroughs were hit pretty hard, and our subway system, because it's below ground, so water entered our subway system. But the MTA responded and got lines back on service as fast as they could. Some are still off. But really, New York has responded accordingly, and our civil service did a great job.
Meminger:
Now, you're facing some criticism and the city administration about you were slow to act and get the information out to people about how severe the storm was and what they should do to stay safe. How do you respond to that criticism?
Mayor Adams:
Then you've been covering this for a long time. Has there ever been a storm, a snow storm, a water storm, or any storm that people didn't come up with a creative way to critique? Listen, let's get the numbers. Let's be honest. Record levels of rain. Zero reported death, zero reported serious injuries. Three people stuck in their basement apartments that we recovered through FDNY. 15 people were stuck on the roadways through their vehicles.
We navigated through this and we started reporting to New Yorkers around 2:45, 2:50 yesterday, and all the stations were talking about the storm to come. You had to be under a rock if you didn't know that this was going to be a serious storm that was hitting the city. Job well done. Instead of being a naysayer, let's be a yaysayer to the good, hardworking civil servants, first responders, and New Yorkers that did the right thing. I'm proud of the city, and because of that, we don't have any reported deaths in this city.
Meminger:
Mm‑hmm. No. So you're saying you did everything right. Final question here. Any learning lessons from this storm? Because, as you said, fortunately, no one died. But any learning lessons?
Mayor Adams:
Any man or woman that goes through life experiencing something and don't walk away with how to do something better is a person that is stagnated and will never grow. I'm always looking at how to do something better. We want to look at how do we use notification systems better? I'm excited about the potentialities of using drones.
You know, I'm a big drone guy. Being able to fly over those areas where their basement apartments, we now do notification and use other ways of doing it, but we should be open to whatever way we can notify people. And we always do an assessment after a major issue and figure out how do we do something better? And the team is going to do that in this case also.
But I remember the storm when we lost New Yorkers because of basement apartments. There's something we did differently because of that, and as I stated, zero deaths reported in those apartments. Three rescues, 15 in vehicles, you know, good job New York City, good job NYCEM, NYPD, FDNY, and the chancellor for making a smart and right decision of keeping our babies in school. That's the safest place for children, and I just want to really commend the team for what they did.
Meminger:
All right. Mayor Eric Adams, joining us from City Hall. Thanks a lot for your time.
Mayor Adams:
Thank you. Take care.
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