4 ms·

NYer here. NYC infrastructure is old and unmaintained. The sewer system is 175 years old. These floods happen every year at different magnitude.

game_the0ry 3y ago
> NYC infrastructure is old and unmaintained. The sewer system is 175 years old. These floods happen every year at different magnitude. Given the amount of money I pay for taxes to the state, perhaps the state/city should update that infrastructure.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  They are, but they are a bit backlogged on what exactly they need to do. Part of the issue is that New York is so old it runs a combined sewer/storm drain system. Modern practice is to separate the two since the former needs to be treated and the latter generally doesn't, but when they're combined the outflows overwhelm the sewage system and then that's how you get backed up sewage, sewage emergency discharge into the harbor, etc. Actually separating the two is quite difficult. On the one hand that means requiring building owners to separate and plug into a new system. Then you run into the fact that in New York 170+ years of haphazardly planned utilities by multiple public and private actors means there is no accurate map of where exactly things are underground, which makes building a new system going under every street expensive and full of legal issues. (The city has been trying to get a handle on this problem for years but doesn't get a lot of cooperation since a lot of these entities treat the location of their stuff underground as trade secrets, if they even have accurate information themselves.) Right now, the projects taking up most of their time are * the construction of Water Tunnel no. 3, since the other two tunnels that deliver all the water to NYC have never been shut down for inspection at any point in their 100+ year lives and can't be unless a backup tunnel exists * lead pipe remediation, because there's still a lot of it.
  - game_the0ry 3y ago
    So...too much legacy technical debt. And no political will to do anything. In an environment of rising interest rates (more expensive gov bonds) and lower tax receipts. Makes sense, given quality of life and city services have been getting worse. And things should (predictably) get worse.
Ologn 3y ago
NYer here also. For the past 10-12 years or so, yes, this has been happening more and more. This kind of thing was not happening 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, at this level any how. You can say now "these floods happen every year", but this used to not be the case. This year New York was covered by smoke due to Canadian forest fires. I can't remember that ever happening in the past half century. I'm sure in a few years someone will these "this happens every year".
- grvdrm 3y ago
  You’re not wrong and the trend is toward more of these torrential-to-flood events. The story is simple: the infrastructure we have doesn’t handle multiple inches of rain in a very short period of time.
  - wizerdrobe 3y ago
    Would that rain have previously had somewhere to run off to, i.e. is over-development plus a lack of infrastructure projects to blame here? Or was the city already heavily developed like this and the storm just that much worse? I’m used to Charleston, SC flooding over the years and the worst spots always neatly lined up with the historical maps, specially the areas of the peninsula that were filled in with trash and covered with dirt. Areas that would have otherwise been low-lying wetlands were the streets you could kayak through.
    - grvdrm 3y ago
      As others pointed out, generalizing across NYC is quite hard. Some areas - particularly in Brooklyn and Queens - are probably more developed than they used to be. What I was pointing to this something like this: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heavy-precipitation https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica... From that article: > Heavy precipitation does not necessarily mean the total amount of precipitation at a location has increased—just that precipitation is occurring in more intense events. However, changes in the intensity of precipitation, when combined with changes in the interval between precipitation events, can also lead to changes in overall precipitation totals. In other words, 6 inches of rain fell at JFK over 4 days, that might be manageable for the infrastructure. Not so much if it happens in one day, which is what this articles speaks to.

game_the0ry 3y ago

> NYC infrastructure is old and unmaintained. The sewer system is 175 years old. These floods happen every year at different magnitude. Given the amount of money I pay for taxes to the state, perhaps the state/city should update that infrastructure.

bobthepanda 3y ago
They are, but they are a bit backlogged on what exactly they need to do. Part of the issue is that New York is so old it runs a combined sewer/storm drain system. Modern practice is to separate the two since the former needs to be treated and the latter generally doesn't, but when they're combined the outflows overwhelm the sewage system and then that's how you get backed up sewage, sewage emergency discharge into the harbor, etc. Actually separating the two is quite difficult. On the one hand that means requiring building owners to separate and plug into a new system. Then you run into the fact that in New York 170+ years of haphazardly planned utilities by multiple public and private actors means there is no accurate map of where exactly things are underground, which makes building a new system going under every street expensive and full of legal issues. (The city has been trying to get a handle on this problem for years but doesn't get a lot of cooperation since a lot of these entities treat the location of their stuff underground as trade secrets, if they even have accurate information themselves.) Right now, the projects taking up most of their time are * the construction of Water Tunnel no. 3, since the other two tunnels that deliver all the water to NYC have never been shut down for inspection at any point in their 100+ year lives and can't be unless a backup tunnel exists * lead pipe remediation, because there's still a lot of it.
- game_the0ry 3y ago
  So...too much legacy technical debt. And no political will to do anything. In an environment of rising interest rates (more expensive gov bonds) and lower tax receipts. Makes sense, given quality of life and city services have been getting worse. And things should (predictably) get worse.

Ologn 3y ago

NYer here also. For the past 10-12 years or so, yes, this has been happening more and more. This kind of thing was not happening 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, at this level any how. You can say now "these floods happen every year", but this used to not be the case. This year New York was covered by smoke due to Canadian forest fires. I can't remember that ever happening in the past half century. I'm sure in a few years someone will these "this happens every year".

grvdrm 3y ago
You’re not wrong and the trend is toward more of these torrential-to-flood events. The story is simple: the infrastructure we have doesn’t handle multiple inches of rain in a very short period of time.
- wizerdrobe 3y ago
  Would that rain have previously had somewhere to run off to, i.e. is over-development plus a lack of infrastructure projects to blame here? Or was the city already heavily developed like this and the storm just that much worse? I’m used to Charleston, SC flooding over the years and the worst spots always neatly lined up with the historical maps, specially the areas of the peninsula that were filled in with trash and covered with dirt. Areas that would have otherwise been low-lying wetlands were the streets you could kayak through.
  - grvdrm 3y ago
    As others pointed out, generalizing across NYC is quite hard. Some areas - particularly in Brooklyn and Queens - are probably more developed than they used to be. What I was pointing to this something like this: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heavy-precipitation https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica... From that article: > Heavy precipitation does not necessarily mean the total amount of precipitation at a location has increased—just that precipitation is occurring in more intense events. However, changes in the intensity of precipitation, when combined with changes in the interval between precipitation events, can also lead to changes in overall precipitation totals. In other words, 6 inches of rain fell at JFK over 4 days, that might be manageable for the infrastructure. Not so much if it happens in one day, which is what this articles speaks to.