Bed-Stuy flooding sparks calls for storm drain, catch basin upgrades
Neighbors on Bainbridge Street and Ralph Avenue told News 12 their catch basins clog almost instantly during heavy rain, causing water mixed with sewage to bubble up from underground and spill across the roadway.
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Residents on a Bed-Stuy block say flooding is hitting them harder than ever after Wednesday night’s severe weather, and they are calling on the city to investigate why their streets continue to fill with water and sewage during storms.
Neighbors on Bainbridge Street and Ralph Avenue told News 12 their catch basins clog almost instantly during heavy rain, causing water mixed with sewage to bubble up from underground and spill across the roadway.
Video from the storm shows the street turning into a fast-moving river, nearly swallowing a parked car as residents rushed into the water to try to clear the drains themselves.
Many of those drains remained clogged Thursday with what the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) says could be sewage waste. Residents say the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) needs to upgrade the drainage infrastructure that they believe can no longer handle routine storms.
“We need to think about redesigning them. What can we do to make them taller? Can we cover them with a cage or a grate? It’s flooding, it’s backing up,” said resident Victoria Foster. “I don’t think that’s healthy for people to be citizens, to be wandering around it.”
Residents say the city’s messaging around the storm has left them confused. OEM warns New Yorkers to avoid standing water and the debris it leaves behind, but also says residents may clear drains themselves if they feel it is safe.
Neighbors told News 12 that nothing about the situation feels safe for them.
"This feels like a city function to clean, but also fix what's underground that is causing this. We are not in a flood plain," Foster said. "We have gone to DEP to ask for upgrades, and we are told to monitor, but it's been six years at least of monitoring. We want someone to see why it keeps happening."
In a statement to News 12, DEP said the flooding on Bainbridge Street was caused by sudden and quick rainfall.
The statement says, "According to weather data, some parts of the city saw half an inch of rain in just five minutes — the equivalent of a 6‑inch‑per‑hour storm. Such an intense downpour can easily overwhelm the city’s sewers, which were designed to handle about 1.5 to 1.75 inches per hour."
The DEP added that after sending a team to look into the street, "One basin was cleaned, debris was removed from the grates of four other catch basins, and all remaining basins were found to be functioning properly."
Another long-flooded street over in neighboring Bushwick is set to get a 390-million-dollar upgrade to its storm drain and flood-prevention system. Foster hopes that something similar can come to Bed-Stuy and alleviate it at the source.
Council Member Chi Osse also took to social media to call for an expansion of the Cloudburst stormwater program recently deployed in Homecrest to come next to Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights, adding that the Mamdani administration committed $108 million city-wide for catch-basin and storm drain replacements, which he hopes can be used in the area.
