Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live on WNBC's "News 4 NY"

September 29, 2023

Adam Kuperstein: Joining us live right now, Mayor Adams. Thank you so much for the time. We appreciate you being with us, Mayor Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you.

Kuperstein: And I know it's been a difficult day for a lot of people, but like we have seen with Ida before this, this historic rainfall exposed a lot of the infrastructure, mayor. People were in dangerous positions because of this rain. What can you do with your power as the mayor to fix this as these storms become more common moving forward?

Mayor Adams: Well, there's a combination of things. First, we have to deal with the crisis of the rainfall while it's here, and we did that. No known deaths, no known serious physical injuries, three rescues from basement apartments, 15 rescues from FDNY for those who were stalled in their vehicles. And so we have to respond to the emergency as we do the long term planning.

DEP and our environmental team is looking at everything from building walls around our shorelines to coming up with real ways of displacing water as it comes in. And then very day New Yorkers cleaning the catch basin, adopt a basin on your block to make sure garbage and leaves are not there. This is all hands on deck moment as we deal with these storms when they're here with us and long term.

Gilma Avalos: My colleague brought up the remnants of Ida. This area learned some tough lessons from the remnants of Ida, particularly that a rain event like this one could lead to loss of life, loss of property. What did you do differently ahead of this storm and what lessons did the city learn?

Mayor Adams: Well, our preparation, we learned… I know when I was borough president we witnessed in just one community several people died in a basement. We identified those locations and we do early communications and warnings in those communities. We send out the NotifyNYC alerts early. We did it yesterday around 2:45, 2:50 p.m. And then I have to take my hat off to our news media in the city. The notifications of this storm coming were sent out to New Yorkers, and people responded accordingly.

You had those that decided to drive in any way. No matter how much you tell them not to, they love their car and you know, they got stuck on the road, it's slow in movement. But for the most part, we are getting through the storm. We're ready for the rain that's going to come this evening. Hat's off to the first responders and New Yorkers.

Kuperstein: Mayor Adams, you're certainly no stranger to criticism in this job, it comes with the territory. But you've never seen a lot of it for the city's timeliness of the response to this rain event. The Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso said the city has to improve communication with New Yorkers. And I thought this was interesting, a fellow Democrat, City Councilman Lincoln Restler said he was dumbfounded by the lack of communication from City Hall to get people prepared. What do you say to that?

Mayor Adams: Well, you know, whenever you want to see, you talk about you get a lot of opinions. You start with Lincoln Restler. Listen, let's be clear. We were in the state of emergency. Let me tell you what I did as borough president and state senator. I wasn't sending out tweets and e‑mails, I was helping my constituents.

And I think that elected officials during the state of emergencies, you can do a retrospective view of what happened, but they should have been answering the calls of their constituencies and doing what I did. Early this morning I was on the streets going to Canarsie, Flatbush, East New York and other places identifying the problems.

We know how we responded in this city, and they should be commending those first responders that did a great job. This is not a time to send out a tweet, it's time to be on the streets helping everyday New Yorkers, and that's what this team has done.

Kuperstein: Do you regret not getting in front of a camera and putting words out to the public earlier this morning?

Mayor Adams: No, no. Think about this for a moment. I've said this over and over about this administration. I assembled a team. A team is not Eric Adams, a team is made up of professionals. I have one of the best NYCEM ex military person who's now in charge of our Emergency Management. I have a police commissioner who understood his job. My chancellor understood his job.

For anyone to state, well, Eric, why didn't we hear you talk about the job which your NYCEM is supposed to do, that is going to discredit to the men and women I assembled together to lead this city. We are a team. And my team members stood up, and because of that, no known deaths, no serious physical injuries, and this city is moving. The water's receding and we continue to show the greatness of the city.

Avalos: Mayor Adams, we thank you for your time. We know it's been a very busy day. Thank you.

Kuperstein: Appreciate it.

Mayor Adams: Yes. Thank you. Take care.

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