New York City officials have released the Rainfall Ready NYC action plan — a plan to prepare the city government and citizens for more extreme rainfall in the future.
As climate change brings more extreme weather to the five boroughs, the city is making significant investments in infrastructure to enhance resilience and prevent flooding.
“Climate change is the city’s biggest environmental threat, and while we continue to invest in resiliency and infrastructure projects to protect us for generations to come, the Rainfall Ready NYC action plan will help every New Yorker to protect themselves, their families, and their homes,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “The city is acting now to keep New Yorkers safe as we move into hurricane season, and I encourage every New Yorker to make emergency plans for the next extreme weather event.”
As rising greenhouse gas emissions accelerate climate change, New Yorkers should expect more frequent and extreme rainfall events that can produce volumes of stormwater that the city’s infrastructure was never designed to capture.
Rainfall Ready NYC outlines what steps New Yorkers and city government can take to combat extreme weather together, including:
- Encouraging New Yorkers to use new interactive stormwater flood maps to understand the likelihood of flooding on one’s block and to make a plan to get to higher ground if needed.
- Inspecting chronic flooding locations and clearing debris from catch basins in at-risk locations prior to predicted storms. New Yorkers are encouraged to clear litter and debris from the curb line and nearby catch basins and deploy barriers to protect low-lying areas.
- Expanding FloodNet, a network of street flooding sensors designed to better understand the frequency, severity, and impacts of flooding in New York City. These sensors will be installed in the most vulnerable areas for real-time data collection and will be accessible via a dashboard for public use beginning later this month.
DEP will also be providing sandbags and flood barriers to residents in at-risk neighborhoods, and the city has engaged Los Deliveristas, Uber Eats, GrubHub, and DoorDash in a working group to create new strategies for ensuring extreme weather messaging reaches delivery workers.
The group will also work to develop protocols to ensure that delivery workers are kept safe during extreme weather, such as restricting deliveries during dangerous weather conditions.
The Rainfall Ready NYC action plan will be shared widely in the weeks and months to come as all New Yorkers must take steps to prepare for more extreme weather.
