NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: Legionnaires' Outbreak Persists, the Story of a Katrina Survivor in New Jersey, and a Taste of Summer Foods.

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

A 7th person has died in Central Harlem's ongoing outbreak of Legionnaires' disease. Plus, a federal judge has extended a temporary order requiring U-S Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding rooms in New York City to meet certain conditions. And finally, the story of a Katrina survivor who made a home in New Jersey.

Legionaire's outbreak persists, the story of a Katrina survivor in New Jersey. And summer may be coming to a close, but summer foods are still around. From WNMIC, this is NYC now. I'm Sean Carlson. A seventh person has died in Central Harlem's ongoing outbreak of Legionaire's disease. It comes a week after the last reported death tied to the outbreak, which had shown signs of waning. The death total is the city's highest since a 2015 outbreak in the Bronx that killed 16. As of Thursday, New York City had 114 confirmed cases of legionnaires.

Six people remain hospitalized. A federal judge has extended a temporary order requiring U.S. immigration and customs enforcement holding rooms in New York City to meet certain conditions. Under the order, ice holding rooms at 26 Federal Plaza are required to provide at least 50 square feet per detainee. The requirement drastically reduces the capacity across the facility's four holding rooms. The order was set to expire this past Tuesday. it's now been extended through September 9th. The order follows a recent lawsuit

filed by immigration rights advocates against the Trump administration. The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to a request for comment. Three correction officers at the Rikers Island jail complex had been suspended after a man died in his cell there last weekend. Jail officials say 29-year-old Arditt Billa

was found unresponsive early Saturday morning as officers tore the facility where he was being held. Staff tried to revive Billa, but they were not successful. The non-profit-le-laid society, which was representing him in court, is calling for an independent investigation into his incident. City medical examiners are working to determine his cause of death. The Department of Correction did not immediately comment. Two decades ago, Terrence Leon George II and his family escaped Hurricane Katrina and found a new home in New Jersey.

He captured their journey in a short film. We'll love more on that after the break. 20 years ago, Hurricane Katrina barreled into the country. Gulf Coast, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. One of them was Terrence Leon George the second. The storm forced him and his family on an unexpected journey from the hot swamps of Mississippi to North Jersey. The experience fueled both anger and an artistic passion that many years later would lead to the aspiring filmmaker's first documentary. It's called Terence versus Katrina. It looks at how, as a little boy, he survived the storm and his aftermath. My colleague Michael Hill recently sat down with Terrence to talk about his experience and his filmmaking.

started off by recalling the storm's first moments. Initially, like, I had our first heard to pour. It was, like, you're like little driplets on the roof. Then the howling, the whipping noises of just the wind, brushing the windows. Then the glass shattering and everything breaking. Don't hear the tree snapping. It just started to pick up, like, really quickly.

And the next thing you knew, my house is, like, is a tree in our house. The ceiling collapse. My head's bleeding. Terran says his family was poor. before the storm, Hurricane Katrina's 125-mile-an-hour winds and 28-foot storm surge left them hungry, homeless, and nearly helpless. My mom, she was really worried about getting her check for every Tuesdays.

They told her, despite her working 40 hours that week, they would not pay her, and we were, like, really a tough position. Then came a chance encounter with a nonprofit organization, feed the children that ultimately changed Terrence's life and his family's future. gave them food and then later filmed the family for a TV spot about Katrina's devastation. Terrence was fascinated when he saw the crew's camera. My twin brother used to speak for me back in the day, so I just like whisper in his ear, and like he was like just asking questions.

But like we were just asking like, who are they? What are they doing? Are they superheroes? The ad featured Terrence's mother, Nikki, giving a tour of their destroyed house. Okay, this is the room we were at when the storm came. We were laying in the bed, and the roof came in, and we had to try to get out of here, and everything fell down. Nikki would borrow a crew member's cell phone to call her father in Bergen County, New Jersey.

What did you think when you saw that spot? Yeah, they were very desperate. So I had to go down and get my kids, and that's what I did. So Reginald Bug, Sr. and his wife loaded up the car and made a 20-hour drive to Mississippi. That moment to me, he was like Superman. That was my hero. Well, I love my grandson. I'm glad he felt that way.

It was a proud moment. Life was not easy in New Jersey, but it offered Terrence certain opportunities. Opportunities he says he never would have had in Mississippi. He got therapy at Englewood Hospital for his speech impediment. He thrived in school despite a brush with a law as a teen. His grandfather gave him a camera, and he became obsessive. with photography. Then he found filmmaking. When I got to filmmaking, it was like, finally, I found a language where I can express myself, my emotions, my desires.

NYU was his dream school, but way too expensive, even with his grandfather's support. So Terrence turned to Rutgers University's Mason Grove School of the Fine Arts. It's a small program, but it cares so much. You know, you can't beat that. It's just, it's love, you know. and I have love for his school, and school has love for me. And through that love, I'm able to be a better person at school in a way it healed me.

At Mason Gross, Terrence made the film Terrence versus Katrina. Terrence Leon George, he comes for seconds. I made the ground wet and they dragged my name through the mud. Submerged you, but you didn't drown.

Destroyed lives, childheads, and your task. Which delved into his own anger at the storm. Something he says he'd been bottling up. for most of his life. You said anger. Anger with Katrina? Oh, yeah.

When I was in kindergarten, I remember every day I just played the blocks, I would, like, kind of stimulate Katrina. So it was, like, a lot of trauma for me. And your anger now. My anger is in the camera. I put it in tamper as Katrina, because in a way, I felt like Katrina, like,

ruined my life. But as I got older, I realized, you know, maybe Katrina was a blessing for me. It wasn't a storm that caused all my problems. Maybe it's, like, my internalized rage. And I was like, how do I deal with that? Like, how do I deal with that? Like, how do I just.

just late piece of it. And after I make the film, I kind of achieved that piece. That's Terrence Leon George II, a filmmaker who now lives in New Jersey. He's re-releasing his film, Terrence versus Katrina, to mark the Storm's 20th anniversary. It'll be available on YouTube. His other short film, Can I Grow Old, is showing at the Newark International Film Festival on September 4th at 6 p.m. Summer weekends may be fading away, but summer produce is not. Amelia Tarpie is a program and publicity manager for Grow and YC Green Markets, and this week she says farm stands across the city are offering more than 600 varieties of peppers this season. Peppers are at their peak late August into September, pretty much up until the first frost.

Obviously, most markets you can find sort of your classic bell peppers, Poblanos, jalapenos, serranos. several markets have more specialty peppers as well. Think ahi dulcés, Korean peppers, Thai chilis. So we're back to school in New York City. So one thing to look out for at the green markets are the lunchbox peppers. They're a super sweet variety of pepper. They're kind of like a mini bell pepper.

They come yellow, orange, red, and they're super cute, super tasty. I always say like each year you got to make at least, one hot sauce to last through the winter, whether you do a fermented hot sauce or you just make the hot sauce and get it into your fridge. For the hot sauce, you leave the peppers raw and just put them into your food processor.

You can do a mortar and pestle until you reach your desired texture. I like to use a variety of different hot peppers and then sometimes throw something sweet into the mix. A classic combo is like a peach habinero salsa. We have peaches at the market at the moment, so I love combining those two. You can also add spices such as toasted cumin or coriander seed,

some ground mustard. It goes a long way in hot sauce. One thing about peppers is they store the heat largely in the seeds. So the seeds of the peppers where you're going to have the highest levels of the capsaicin. So if you want a less spicy hot sauce, remove the seeds. If you like it super spicy, you can leave the seeds in there. Amelia Tarpe is a program and publicity manager for Grow NYC Green Markets. She adds that most peppers are priced at about $4 a pound, up to $8 a pound for specialty peppers,

or you can get a half-gallon container of peppers priced at about $6 a carton. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. I'm Sean Carlson. Our team is taking off Monday to observe Labor Day, but we are still here for you. We'll drop one episode in the middle of the day, so be on the lookout for that before you hit the barbecue. And have a good weekend.