Over the last year, the Office of the City Comptroller has studied whether it can compensate the families and businesses affected. The city Department of Environmental Protection, the agency responsible for managing the city’s water supply, water distribution and wastewater systems, conducted an investigation into the flooding and advised Comptroller Bill Thompson Jr. that it found no basis to hold the city liable for damages.
According to the DEP, the heavy rainfall on those days overwhelmed the existing sewer systems. According to their records, personnel responded in a timely manner and took appropriate measures to relieve the flooding conditions, Thompson stated.
After reviewing the situation, Thompson came to the same conclusion as the DEP: the city was not responsible for the flooding. “I deeply regret that we are not able to provide claimants with better news regarding this unfortunate event,” he said in a statement.
But those who suffered in the storm disagree. They say the city, especially the DEP, failed to maintain the sewer system and provide adequate catch basins for the area. “There has been flooding here before,” Saffran said. “It’s not like they were unaware of this problem.”
For people like Saffran, it’s a disappointing end to a day that began in a devastating manner.
The storm that flooded his apartment was the same that spawned a tornado in Brooklyn, bringing with it dramatic headlines and discussions of climate change. “They got all the press, all the TV coverage,” Saffran said. “We got all the damage.”
In Forest Hills, the rain started at about 6 a.m. and didn’t let up for close to two hours. Saffran lives on the first floor of an apartment complex situated at the bottom of two hills. Soon, the toilet and bathtub began to gurgle. Then they started overflowing. Then water from the streets rushed through the lobby and into the seven first-floor apartments.
Saffran put his 8-year-old son on his shoulders, took his wife by the hand and began wading out of the building.
“I had four feet of water in my apartment,” he said. “I lost literally everything.”
Furniture, appliances, bureaus, closets full of clothing, photos of his son growing up, photos of his honeymoon — everything was contaminated by stormwater and raw sewage. And everything had to be thrown away.
It took four months before he and his family could return home.
Heidi Pashkao is all too familiar with the situation. She rents an apartment in the same building, and at the time both her son and daughter were living there with her.
While she still lives in the same apartment, nothing in it is the same: the walls, the floor, the furniture — everything had to be replaced.
Her experience on Aug. 8 is just as harrowing. When the water began coming through the front door, her husband, Ted, had to force it shut because it quickly became warped and wouldn’t stay closed. Her daughter, Deeana, climbed out of the window to call for help.
“If my husband could not hold the front door closed ... I swear we would have drowned under 10 feet of water.”
Pashkao depended on the generosity of friends, family and neighbors after the event. She sent an email to everyone she knew asking for help. “At that point, you’re not proud,” she said.
For six weeks the family stayed with friends, then stayed in another apartment on an upper floor in the building while their place was being renovated.
When they did move back in, they had nothing to bring with them except some clothing, but they soon received items from friends in the Hamptons, Maryland, Florida and Virginia.
Friends even held a housewarming party, where the family registered for items at stores “like a bride and groom do,” Pashkao said.
Like Saffran, she can’t believe that the city isn’t partially responsible for the flooding and couldn’t have done something to prevent it.
Also, she remembers 28 years ago, when there was another flood and she had four inches of water in her apartment.
“The city knew there was a problem,” Saffran added, saying it put in new catch basins just months after the flooding. “In city terms, that was like overnight.”
The residents have received backing from some area representatives. Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Fresh Meadows) condemned the decision as “callous,” and said the flooding damage was a result of the city’s negligence.
“The city has known for years of inadequate sewer infrastructure and regular, widespread flooding, and the city must take responsibility for failing its most basic municipal obligations — to keep raw sewage from flowing into people’s home when it rains,” Lancman said in a statement. “Why was Mayor (Michael) Bloomberg focusing all of his time on building baseball stadiums and pushing for a basketball arena in Brooklyn and a football stadium in Manhattan, but doing absolutely nothing for residents of Queens whose homes and streets are flooded when it rains?”
Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village) said that in the areas of Middle Village, Maspeth and Glendale, which she represents, the fear of another devastating rain storm is still there, as the DEP has not done enough to address problems.
“My constituents need to know that their tax money is going towards their security, such as pipelines and sewage systems that will not collapse in the face of another storm,” Crowley said. “The impact of a hundred-year storm combined with city infrastructure designed in the 1920s does not come close to meeting the needs of the community.”
A spokesman for the DEP said it sympathizes with the victims of the storms, but the rain exceeded the design capacity of the city’s sewer infrastructure. About 77 percent of the city’s sewers were constructed prior to 1960 and were designed to handle up to 1.5 inches of rain per hour. In areas developed since 1960, that number is increased to 1.75 inches of rain per hour. The Aug. 8 storm exceeded those figures.
Lancman, as well as Thompson, have called on the mayor to ensure that federal stimulus funds are allocated to address the region’s infrastructure problems.
Victims of the floods still have a few more weeks to file a lawsuit against the city for the flood and Pashkao said she will do just that, in an attempt to get $250,000 she says she is owed. Not only did she lose her possessions — antique rugs, classic and pricey music albums and electronics —she said she has also developed rheumatoid arthritis from the stress and aggravation brought on by the situation.
Also, whenever it rains, she worries: will her apartment get flooded again? “It will always be in the back of my mind,” she said.
Saffran said he has explored filing suit, but doesn’t believe it’s worth pursuing any further because most attorneys won’t touch it. “The amounts we’re asking for aren’t large enough to make it worth their while,” he said. He’s even tried exploring a class action lawsuit, but again, he can’t find an attorney who will touch it.
“We’re basically at the end of the line with this,” he said.
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