New York is getting wetter, and federal help is drying up

When it rains, it pours. The metaphor carries new meaning as climate change drives an increase in extreme rainstorms in the Northeast.

Twice in July, flash floods hit New York City. On July 14, more than 2 inches of rain fell in a single hour at Central Park, the second-highest amount ever recorded, only trailing the remnants of Hurricane Ida, which killed 13 people in 2021. At the end of the month, severe downpours flooded the city again, prompting a state of emergency. Social media lit up with scenes of water cascading into subway stations and shooting up like geysers from overwhelmed sewer pipes. Cars and trucks were partially submerged on some highways. Intersections in low-lying neighborhoods once again turned into lakes.

Extreme rain events are happening more frequently in New York. According to one study, there has been a 60% increase across the Northeast in extreme rain since the 1950s. Emergency management officials said this is New York’s new normal. “A warmer climate means that there’s more moisture in the air. More moisture in the air means you have more rainfall, and it also means you have higher rates of rain,” said Zach Iscol, commissioner of New York City Emergency Management. “Our infrastructure was designed decades ago to handle rainfall rates of 1.7 inches of rain an hour. We’re now seeing storms, and multiple storms a year, where we get rainfall rates of over 2 inches, 2 to 3 inches an hour for a prolonged period of time, and that can cause flash flooding.”

But New York City is also bouncing back from flash floods more quickly. “The morning after, the headlines were about the city is back, the subways are running, the city is functioning again,” said Robert Freudenberg, vice president for energy and environment at the Regional Plan Association, a transportation and infrastructure think tank. As an expert on climate mitigation and adaptation, he said the city is seeing a payoff from investments made in flood mitigation in recent years. “We’ve got a long way to go, but it’s getting better, and this is not the time to pull back on these investments. This is the time to double down on them and build on the success we’ve had,” Freudenberg said.

After Superstorm Sandy in 2012, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority set aside over $7 billion to fortify its infrastructure against storm surge flooding, which is when water inundates areas of land from the city’s rivers and bays. But extreme rains flood the city in different ways. “Ida prompted both an incredible amount of work and planning on the MTA side, and a lot of work with our partners at the city’s Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Transportation,” said Sean Fitzpatrick, deputy chief of staff at MTA Construction & Development.

One low-tech adaptation was constructing a step up at street-level subway entrances to prevent water from cascading down subway staircases. Some sidewalk ventilation grates were raised to prevent street flooding from flowing onto the tracks below. These changes were made possible thanks to federal funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies.

The MTA is counting on more federal dollars to build on that work. “On a dry day, we pump out something like 10 million gallons of water from the subway system, just from underground streams and the everyday reality of working underground,” Fitzpatrick said. “A lot of those pump rooms are 40 to 50 years old and need to be upgraded, both to keep functioning and to increase their capacity.”

The work of draining flood waters falls to the Department of Environmental Protection. “We have worked really hard to make sure that we are getting maximum performance out of the sewer system that we currently have,” said Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala, who also serves as the city’s chief climate officer. But extreme rain events exceed the sewer system’s capacity, making flash floods inevitable.

The department is working on large-scale upgrades like increasing sewer capacity along Knickerbocker Avenue in Brooklyn, a $390 million project. While those projects take years to complete, other efforts focus on smaller initiatives and routine maintenance, like more frequent cleaning of catch basins across the city. “A year ago on any given day, we had 5,000 catch basins that we knew had to be cleaned. Today it’s roughly 300 across the entire city,” Aggarwala said. “That’s 4,700 intersections around the city that are less likely to see flooding.” The department also purchased more vehicles to clean out known choke points in the system.

The Department of Environmental Protection can fund that daily work and issue bonds thanks, in part, to the revenue it collects from water bills. But federal dollars make up a portion of the budget for major sewer upgrades and other flood mitigation projects. Under President Donald Trump, FEMA may be turning off that spigot. “The federal government is kind of walking away from supporting cities and states, and particularly denying the issue of climate change,” Aggarwala said. “There is certainly a clear sense that the message from Washington is we’re on our own and they don’t care.”

For decades, FEMA focused on disaster recovery. Federal disaster declarations led to the allocation of grants to cover the cost of repairing storm damage and making people whole again. As weather related disasters grew in size and frequency and recovery costs increased, FEMA turned its attention toward resilience work. The agency dedicated more money to projects that protect against storm damage, hoping to save taxpayers money in the long run.

From 2010 to 2018, roughly $1.4 billion in total FEMA disaster mitigation funds went toward pre-disaster resilience, according to the Congressional Research Service. Then, FEMA launched the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program. The agency’s investment in proactive mitigation work skyrocketed, from $500 million in fiscal year 2020 to over $3 billion in 2023. The amount continued to rise in 2024. Cities and states with a history of flooding seized the opportunity to undertake major infrastructure improvements to protect vulnerable communities.

Just as emergency management officials in New York felt like they were making progress, in April the Trump administration rescinded $4.6 billion in BRIC grants, money already approved for nearly 2,000 projects across the U.S. The president ended a program that started during his first term.

Over $351 million in BRIC grants promised to New York City for several storm mitigation projects were canceled. Public officials were outraged by the sudden revocation after spending years on planning and designing. State Attorney General Letitia James joined 19 other states in a lawsuit against FEMA seeking the restoration of that money. “This administration’s decision to slash billions of dollars that protect our communities from floods, wildfires and other disasters puts millions of New Yorkers at risk,” James said in a statement. Gov. Kathy Hochul called the move “a massive risk to public safety,” adding that it jeopardized lifesaving work that already began on a number of projects.

Close to $200 million in BRIC grants had been approved for mitigation projects to combat intense rainstorms in Manhattan’s Central Harlem and in East Elmhurst, Kissena Corridor Park and Corona in Queens; places that often flood. Plans combined a variety of adaptations to protect those vulnerable communities – stormwater storage tanks, increasing sewer capacity, rain gardens and porous pavement, turning basketball courts into water retention sites and more. Over $42 million in BRIC grants were allocated to the Seaport Coastal Resilience Project to protect the South Street Seaport and surrounding area from coastal flooding and sea level rise. Another $13 million was approved to protect the Hunts Point Cooperative Market. The New York City Housing Authority was awarded close to $48 million to protect three developments from flooding.

David Richardson, who is the senior official performing the duties of FEMA administrator, wrote in a legal filing, “FEMA has not ended the BRIC program, contrary to publicity otherwise. FEMA and DHS continue to evaluate whether to end the BRIC program or revise it in a manner to achieve its original purpose.”

In early August, a federal judge in Boston issued a preliminary injunction preventing the government from spending money allocated to the program for other purposes.

Experts refuted FEMA’s characterization of the BRIC program as wasteful and ineffective. “If the federal government awarded these funds, the projects have been vetted,” said Freudenberg, of the Regional Plan Association. “Only the projects that are sure to have an impact are given the funding.”

The lives of New York’s most vulnerable residents hang in the balance. “ People are suffering in these communities. It’s very sad,” said Amit Shivprasad, as he stood in front of his house on 183rd Street in Hollis, Queens. In 2021, the Guayanese immigrant was up to his chest in water in the same spot. The remnants of Hurricane Ida dumped more than 3 inches of rain per hour on the area. His basement flooded when a section of the wall collapsed. Two tenants were trapped and died. “Every time it rains, no one goes to sleep, no one does anything. Your whole concept is look out the windows, look on the street for any water. It shouldn’t be like that,” Shivprasad said.

When he and his parents bought the home they were unaware that the area had once been an irrigation pond for local farms. In the early 20th century, a developer drained the pond, put down landfill and built houses on top of it. But water has a memory. When it rains, it wants to return to what was once a pond in the low-lying neighborhood. Today, the area is home to a predominantly minority community. “You come into an area like Southeast Queens and go over to Flushing, and you look at these areas, you know, it’s climate racism,” Shivprasad said.

Many neighborhoods that flood frequently also suffer from the lasting effects of prior discriminatory practices. “If you overlay that map of the districts in New York City that were redlined, 67% of the communities are environmental justice communities,” said Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice Executive Director Elijah Hutchinson.

The uncertainty around the future of BRIC grants comes on top of cuts to other Department of Homeland Security programs. Preparing for natural disasters is a year-round effort. The Department of Homeland Security provides funding for police, fire and other emergency services to do the work through the Urban Area Security Initiative. New York is the program’s largest recipient.

In March, Congress passed a continuing resolution to maintain current levels of funding for Urban Area Security Initiative grants. But a June deadline came and went with no money allocated. Hochul joined emergency management agencies across the country in flooding the Department of Homeland Security with letters expressing the urgent need for the funds at the end of July. The grants were announced the following day. Despite Congress’ continuing resolution, the New York City region’s funding was cut by 41%, according to a city Emergency Management official. For the city and state leaders trying to make progress on these projects, it will likely be a tough road ahead.