Directs State Agencies to Deploy Additional Emergency Response Assets to Long Island, NYC and Hudson Valley as Tropical Storm Henri Continues to Impact New York State with Surge and Heavy Rain
Federal Disaster Declaration Issued for Albany, Bronx, Broome, Chenango, Columbia, Delaware, Dutchess, Greene, Kings, Montgomery, Nassau, New York, Orange, Otsego, Putnam, Queens, Rensselaer, Richmond, Rockland, Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie, Suffolk, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester Counties
Storm Surge and Heavy Rain Expected to Continue to Affect Areas in Long Island, New York City and Areas Along the Hudson River Through Monday
Dangerous Storm Surge Combined with High Tide Likely to Result in 3 to 5 Feet of Water Above-Ground in Normally Dry Locations in Long Island
Possible 4 to 8 Inches of Rain Expected Sunday Through Monday for LI, NYC, Hudson Valley with Isolated Totals Near 10 Inches
Governor Cuomo: "We're on it all today, all through tonight, until the storm passes and until we know what kind of damage has been done, and we ask you to remain attentive and cautious and smart and smart, do what you need to do. Please, don't be the cynical man and the storm. Thank you very much."
Good morning, good morning, good morning. Let me introduce the august group we have assembled here today. My far right, Superintendent New York State Police, Kevin Bruen. To his left, Michael Kopy, the Director of the Emergency Management Operations for the State of New York. Rick Cotton, Port Authority, airports, bridges, tunnels. Melissa DeRosa, Secretary to the Governor. My left, in this fancy yellow jacket, Janno Lieber, all things MTA. Subways, Long Island Railroad, Metro North. To his left, Kelly Cummings, Director of State Operations. To her left, Marie Therese Dominguez, Commissioner Department of Transportation.
We have good news and we have less good news. It's Sunday, let's start with the good news. Good news is the category hurricane has been downgraded to a tropical storm. That is good news. And tropical storm Henri has moved to the east, headed back towards France, momentarily. And that's good news for the state because when the storm shifts east, it misses more of New York.
This is the projected path in the blue. Again, this is the cone where they call the cone of options. They're not quite sure where within this cone, but this is the projected cone of the storm. The red area surrounding the blue will be the areas of the state affected by the storm. So, you have the storm track itself, and then you have the affected areas of the storm, but it moved about 40 miles east. It was first supposed to hit central Long Island, then it moved further east. Now it's basically projected to be about Montauk point for the storm itself, not the affected area of the storm.
This is the 8:00 AM storm track on the very bottom. That's where it was. It is projected to hit Long Island at about 11 o'clock. So that's about one hour. It then actually bends west. Which is the less good news for us. These maps always seem complicated. We try to get it simple.
11:00 AM Sunday, it hits Long Island about, Montauk, a little west of Montauk. The red is the affected area of the storm, wind, rain, et cetera. And then you see the bend left again to the west, which brings it back closer to the New York State border, more towards the Albany and Capital District region.
For Long Island, we're looking for a storm impact in the red area. Certainly Suffolk, Nassau, partially New York City. Nassau, we're talking about three inches of rain, further out in Suffolk 4.5 inches of rain, New York two and a half inches of rain, which can cause some flooding, but nothing catastrophic. If this track remains.
This is the affected area of the storm, okay? So forget this specific track of the storm, the eye of the storm. What is the affected area by the storm? And that's what you see here. The numbers are the inches of projected rainfall. So, while we're still talking about the eye of the storm hitting Long Island, and then the eye heading up towards the Capital District region, Massachusetts, you see the affected area is actually quitelarge and the amount of rainfall is actually quite large in many of these areas and that's what we're concerned about.
The red areas are the most significant rainfall. So, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and then you see a red area towards the Catskills and that's what we are concerned about. Total projected rainfall, 8:00 AM, Monday 8:00 AM tomorrow. This is what we're looking at. Four inches of rain, three and a half inches of rain. Two inches in New York City. You could get up to five inches of rain in Westchester. Hudson Valley, 4.6. That is a significant amount of rainfall and it should be taken seriously. And then you see the projected rainfall going into Monday afternoon.
The storm hits Long Island and then slows. A slow storm is a problematic storm because when the storm slows, it continues to drop rain for an extended period of time. The variable is how quickly that storm continues to move. When you see five inches of rain, four inches of rain, the question becomes over what period of time? Is it Five inches of rain over four hours or is it five inches of rain over 12 hours? That's all the difference in the world. We already have saturated ground, so the absorption capacity of the ground is limited. And that's what makes this level of rainfall especially problematic.
Storm surge forecast, again, three to five feet in the sound, two to four in the ocean. But that is a significant surge and something that we are preparing for. We have crews out this morning on the beaches that are shoring up the dunes. We have bulldozers moving. We're seeing light flooding already on the south shore of Long Island and we're just trying to build up those dunes along the south shore to stop flooding and places like Long Beach where we tend to see it, you know. We know where storms hit now. It's the one advantage that we haven't gone through as many storms as we have gone through. So we're doing the best we can to move sand, to protect the shoreline. But again, a three to five foot surge, that is going to be serious and it's something we're going to have to be concerned about.
More good news, President Biden has approved our emergency declaration today. That is what's called a pre land fall declaration. Very often we have an emergency declaration by the federal government after the storm.
Why is the emergency declaration important? Because the emergency declaration triggers federal reimbursement. When we can obtain a pre-landfall declaration from the federal it means all the preparatory work we're now doing will also be subject to federal reimbursement. So all the deployment troops, and we have deployed 500 National Guard, 1,000 State Police, 500 pieces of equipment. There are Department of Transportation personnel all across the state. You'll hear from the MTA and the Port Authority. They are having people work all night long.
We've moved equipment from as far away as Buffalo down to Long Island. When we have a situation like this we go into what we call flex mode, where the area of the state that is affected, we flex all the equipment and personnel to that effected area. That is all very exciting and this federal declaration means the state and the local governments will be reimbursed for that cost.
So thank you very much, President Biden who is a good man and a good soul. I've known him a long time and he is just fundamentally a person who always does the right thing on a human level and a personal level. And to me, that comes first before the politician or the elected official. He is a good man and he does the right thing.
Bad news is this - that rainfall in the Catskills is a significant problem. Remember, think Irene and Lee. Not Superstorm Sandy. Think Irene and Lee. We sat in this room. It was forecast to hit New York City and it turned and it didn't hit New York Cityand everybody said, amen, it didn't hit New York City. But when it turned, it hit the Catskills and it hit the Catskills with rain and a high level of rain over a short period of time is highly problematic for that entire Hudson Valley. The Hudson Valley, think of the topography, you have hills, you have creeks. The water comes running down those hills, hits what was a creek, and turns it into a ravaging river. I have seen towns float away. We spent weeks and weeks digging out towns. I've seen homes floating by. Margaretville, Prattsville, small towns in these mountainous areas get devastated by the rain.
I'm going to turn it over to the MTA, Janno Lieber and Port Authority, Rick Cotton, for their update but first I want to share with you one quick abbreviated story. I was thinking about today, Sunday - cynical man in the storm.
Next scene - cynical man is at the pearly gates and he meets our maker, and our maker says, welcome to the pearly gates. And the cynical man says, well, thank you. It's good to be here. It's better than the alternative, but you know, I'm confused. I went to church every Sunday, I'm a God-fearing man, I thought you would take care of me. And our maker turns back to the cynical man and says, you're confused? I'm confused. I sent a truck, a boat and a helicopter. What happened?
There's only so much we can do. It's up to you. You know the areas that are going to flood. You know the areas that Sandy affected, Irene affected, Lee affected. Please act responsibly.
With that, let me turn it over to Janno Lieber, who is all things MTA. He has been extraordinary, in public service. He has constructed projects that nobody thought could be construct constructed. He did it when the entire bureaucracy told him it was impossible. L-train tunnel, finishing the second avenue subway and he's responsible for the operation now, and it could not be in better hands in my opinion. Janno Lieber.
Janno Lieber: Thank you, Governor. Thank you for your kind words. Look, this is a huge emergency and we are as always prioritizing the safety of the customers and our employees. Literally thousands of MTA staffers have been summoned back to work to engage in the preparations for this storm. We have been working the pumping infrastructure to make sure the subway system is not inundated. We've been deploying mobile pumping systems to be ready if there are areas that are inundated.
Stuff like clearing drains, plugging the vents in the areas of the subway system which are low lying, which is something that we have now developed equipment for post-Sandy and we've been deploying that in select locations.
On the commuter railroads we've got not just all the equipment and trucks and systems necessary get rid of trees, which are felled onto trucks, but we have patrol trains, rescue trains that are pre deployed to be ready in the event, God forbid, that a train becomes stopped for some reason. So, we are fully ready. We've got stone trains ready to rebuild the ballast of the track if the water does damage there.
So, the preparations have been extraordinary and the result is that we have right now, the New York City subway and bus system, New York City transit is operating without any suspensions. We have three diversions of bus routes because of localized water conditions, but we have been able to preserve the full operation of our bus and subway system.
On Long Island Railroad and Metro North, we have suspensions of service, which we've been messaging aggressively to our customers to make sure everybody knew yesterday, starting early yesterday, if possible, to get off the east end of Long Island, that we were today, suspending service on the Montauk branch, east of Patchogue and on the Greenport branch east of Ronkonkoma. So we let everybody know it was time to move, so they wouldn't be stuck. I think that messaging has been effective.
On Metro North, we suspended entirely the New Haven line because that's right at the coast and also the Harlem line of the branch that goes to Wassaic, which is in harm's way to some extent, for the rain issues that you have identified.
We also have relocated trains out of yards and other areas where they might be subject to some flooding, especially in the New Haven yard, we moved the Metro North trains out.
So everything has been done. We have all of the protocols in place, of course, in the event of high winds and the standards we use in terms of wind velocity, the close bridges. As of last night, we were barring tractor trailers and tandem trailers, which didn't have full loads because those have some risk in wind.
But we're ready on all fronts. And the result is that I think the system is operating well because of those preparations. MTA.info and the my MTA app will continue to provide real-time information to the public and we urge folks, as you have said, if you don't need to travel, please stay home. And if you absolutely absolutely must travel in the city, please take mass transit.
