New York: After flash floods caused by the remnants of Tropical Depression Ida killed at least 44 people – many in basements – in the New York area overnight into Thursday, Governor Kathy Hochul today announced that President Joe Biden has approved an Emergency Disaster Declaration for New York following the devastation caused by “unprecedented, historic rainfall”.
Under an Emergency Declaration, up to $5 million in immediate federal funding is made available to impacted counties to support ongoing response and rescue operations prior to issuance of a traditional Major Disaster Declaration.
The 14 affected counties covered by the declaration include: Bronx, Dutchess, Kings, Nassau, New York, Orange, Putnam, Queens, Richmond, Rockland, Suffolk, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester.
Governor Hochul also announced that at her request, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will work with the State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, as well as local partners to begin an expedited damage assessment process, which is required for a Major Disaster Declaration, on September 3.
At Governor Hochul’s direction, State agencies’ emergency response assets are on the ground helping local partners with cleanup and restoration efforts.
“As Downstate areas recover from this extreme weather event, I have requested and secured an Emergency Disaster Declaration from the federal government that will help provide localities with funding and relief in the initial restoration efforts. I will continue to urge the federal government to expedite the damage assessment process to provide all the federal resources available to ensure New Yorkers get what they need to recover from this historic storm,” Governor Hochul said.
New York’s utilities have approximately 6,000 workers available to engage in damage assessment, response, repair and restoration efforts across the State.
Today’s storm restoration focus was concentrated on the downstate regions that were most severely impacted by the storm.
The Governor’s office stated that New York State experienced an incident peak of 52,000 electric customer outages at 3 a.m. Thursday, and over the course of the restoration efforts, utilities had restored more than 80,000 electric customers impacted by the storm. There were currently 7,900 remaining customers without power, with the bulk of them (6,400) in Westchester County.
Moreover, as of this morning, there were nearly a dozen full or partial road closures in the Lower Hudson Valley because of flooding.
New York State Police was continuously monitoring multiple road closures in the Hudson Valley and Long Island caused by flooding.
– global bihari bureau
