Mayor Mamdani Holds Ethnic and Community Media Roundtable on Extreme Weather
Zohran Mamdani on NYC Mayor's Office.
Passages
Morning, everyone. Thank you again for being here. It's a real pleasure to have all of you here at City Hall. We are gathering because of the fact that while we know that our city has long dealt with summer hazards, with the acceleration of the climate crisis, we are seeing the intensification of these kinds of events. And within the past month alone, we have seen our city deal with hazardous air quality, extreme heat, flooding, and we also know that hurricane season is on the horizon. Now, we have been hard at work to prepare for this moment and all of the moments that will come after this. Not that long ago, I was standing alongside our DEP commissioner to celebrate the Bureau of Coastal Resilience and the more than $40 million that we were investing to increase the operating capacity around initiatives that include having new floodwalls that are learning from the legacy that our city had when it came to Sandy. And we also know that the information that we are sharing, it is only worth as much as people are actually hearing it. And so much of the importance of all of you being here this morning is that we know that so many New Yorkers look to you, they look to your outlets, they look to your publications, they look to your TV channels to get a better sense of the world around them and the city that they live in. And what we want to do is to make sure that no matter what language a New Yorker speaks or what publication they read, that they all understand That the heat that we are talking about right now, the potential of flash flooding, these are not just things to shrug your shoulders at and persevere through. These are things to also prepare for. So I appreciate all of you being here. And I also want to say thank you to leaders that we have within city government as well and joining us this morning. Thank you.
SPEAKER_06so i when it comes to the mta we have been having conversations with them as to all that we can be doing together to combat flooding as you know we have seen this in our city for years and decades and we also know that it's not acceptable and a lot of this is a legacy of sewage infrastructure that is more than 100 years old and yet we are looking at every single avenue we have to make it easier for new yorkers to get around the city because we know that no matter how hot it gets no matter how cold it is There are still many New Yorkers who have to get to work, and we want to make sure that this is as easy as possible for them. Separately, a lot of what we see when it comes to flooding, we're looking to take as many preventative measures as we can. I'm proud to say that, in large part thanks to the incredible work of DP, we have cleared over 71,000 catch basins in the seven months that we've been in office. we're talking about a period of time where a fourth of this year so far has been under a flash flooding advisory and when we clear those catch basins we know that that makes it much easier for us to actually ensure that the water is going into this our system as opposed to it is being blocked from that because of garbage or whatever else you may have when it comes to the ride share companies and the surcharge you know this is uh the business model that they have is one surge pricing at different points I would say that it is as good a moment as any to remind New Yorkers that yellow cabs do not have surcharges public transit do not have these kinds of surge pricing and these are exactly the places that if you want to find stable consistent pricing you'll still find them in the midst of these conditions thank you thank you for your question we're gonna go over to Debra Lee
SPEAKER_06I'll start and then I'll pass it over to you. I think your question also highlights the importance of roundtables like this one, because we know that there are many New Yorkers for whom English may not be their first language, and the publications around this table may be the ones that they read. the radios, maybe the ones that they listen to, the TVs, maybe the ones that they watch. And we want to make sure that there is no hierarchy of information based upon what language you speak in the city, that every person who lives in the city understands both the heat wave that we are speaking about, the ways in which that they should prepare, and the tools that they have on offer. So language access is critically important to us, also in the services that we provide. And I'm just going to pass it over now to Nysam to add a few additional details to that answer.
SPEAKER_06I think it's, we have to be realistic as to what the administration's focus has been, what policies they've pursued, and always leave the door open in case there is a change of approach. We will never be above working with anyone if it can benefit New Yorkers.
SPEAKER_06I really appreciate this question, and I think you heard it from our DEP commissioner that we do have the best drinking water in the world. And one of the most beautiful things about it is that this water is water that you don't have to purchase a water bottle to have. You can find it at a water fountain in your local park. And just yesterday, I was alongside a number of incredible parks workers helping to – bring to life a few additional water fountains in Prospect Park. This is work that is going to continue because we want to make it easy for New Yorkers to stay hydrated wherever they are. And then you heard it earlier, when it comes to this heat wave, when it comes to heat indices of around 100 degrees, we want to encourage everyone to drink even more water than they would think they need to. It is important to stay hydrated in this time. It is important to take every precaution you can. We will have water available at our hundreds of cooling centers. We also have cool vans, which is a new approach that we've started where these are mobile vans that have electrolytes. They have cold water. They have a place for people to cool down with air conditioning. They also have food to ensure that people are staying hydrated. healthy and that will be the case across the five boroughs and it will also be the case that we have check-ins with older adults that are vulnerable to this level of temperature because we know that every year around 500 New Yorkers lose their lives as a result of the heat and we never want people to simply treat this weekend like any other. We want them to be prepared for what is very serious conditions and take every precaution they can. Thank you so much. Do you have anything else, Commissioner? Okay.
SPEAKER_06
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