NYC NOW - July 5, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

Three people are dead and at least 11 are injured after a 44-year-old pickup truck driver plowed into a crowd during 4th of July celebrations on the Lower East Side Thursday night. Officials say the driver, who was under the influence, has been arrested. In other news, the National Weather Service warns New York and New Jersey beachgoers to avoid swimming without lifeguards this weekend due to high rip current risks. Meanwhile, city data shows increased particle pollution from fireworks on Thursday. Plus, New Jersey’s congressional delegation is asking the federal government to investigate issues on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor tracks over the last 11 weeks. WNYC’s Sean Carlson speaks with Representative Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey’s 11th district about the efforts. Finally, the drowning of two Brooklyn teens at Riis Park in the Rockaways raises safety concerns. WNYC’s Liam Quigley reports that Riis Beach is rapidly eroding, making rip currents stronger.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, July 5th. Here's the midday news. I'm Jene Pierre. The NYPD says a 44-year-old man is under arrest after a crash on the lower east side killed three people and injured at least 11 Thursday night. Police say the driver of a pickup truck plowed into a crowd of pedestrians at water in Jackson

streets around nine. Officials say officers arrived to find to find the truck on top of multiple pedestrians before prying them out. EMS says three victims are in critical condition. Officials say the driver was under the influence of alcohol. The National Weather Service is warning beachgoers not to get in the water if there isn't a lifeguard. The agency says the rib current risk level is high for even experienced swimmers at South Shore beaches in Nassau County today and tomorrow. That includes Long Beach, the Rockaways, and Coney Island in the city. There's a moderate risk level for Jersey Shore beaches. The warning extends through Saturday night at 9. Experts say if you find yourself being dragged out to see by a rip current, try to relax and not exhaust yourself

by fighting against it. If it hurts to breathe today, well, you've got fireworks to think. City data shows concentrations of small particle pollution known as PM2.5 spiked Thursday night amid the fireworks celebrations. They have declined since, but the air remains unhealthy for kids, seniors, pregnant New Yorkers, and people with pre-existing conditions. Exposure can cause coughing, throat irritation, and asthma attacks. Between the heat and the particle pollution, it's a good day to limit your outdoor time if you're in one of those groups. High-quality face masks can also help protect you if you do venture outdoors.

Visit our news site Gothamist for the latest air quality data. Stay close. There's more after the break. On WNYC, I'm Sean Carlson. New Jersey's entire congressional delegation is asking the federal government to investigate the repeated commuter meltdowns NJ Transit and Amtrak riders have experienced over the last six weeks. The 11-member bipartisan group sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg last week, asking the federal DOT to look into what went wrong on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor Tracks, which NJ Transit also runs most of its trains on and how a repeat can be prevented. Representative Mikey Sherrill is from New Jersey's 11th Congressional District,

consisting of parts of Maras, Passaic, and Essex counties. She's one of the leaders of the effort, and she joins us now. Congresswoman, can you tell us what you and your colleagues hope to accomplish with the letter? I think we hope to accomplish a sense of urgency to address this problem, Congress has turned over to Amtrak $6 billion for the Northeast Corridor, and to have these meltdowns now routinely is just unacceptable. Commuters, you know, in my area are describing, you know, questioning whether or not they can continue to live in New Jersey if this is going to be the experience. Have you gotten a response from the feds yet? And if not, are you expecting one? So we have not heard back yet, although Congressman Menendez was questioning Secretary Buttigieg the other day when he came before the Transportation Committee.

We submitted questions for the record, so we will continue to pressure DOT to understand where they are headed with us and how we are going to get better results. And really, to push in on that sense of urgency, the sort of, um, lack of understanding of how we are going to fix this is really frustrating. You hear that the tracks are too hot or the wires get hot and hang too low. You know, it's not going to get cooler from everything we've heard. So these are really major questions of how are we going to move forward and make sure our commuters have a better experience. You know, you touched on exactly what we wanted to ask you about.

The extreme heat wave the region was experiencing at the time of those meltdowns played a likely role in all of it. electric wires sagging in the heat. Sometimes they get tangled with the equipment on top of the trains. The nonprofit Climate Central published data today showing New Jersey is warming faster than any other state in the region. So should commuters just be preparing for a new normal of sorts along these rail lines? No, no. They should not because we should be looking at how to become more resilient. Unfortunately, climate change is happening to us now and we should not just, you know, assume. that we are going to be able to do nothing about it or not need it with innovation and resilience.

So that is why I'm demanding a sense of urgency. That is why we have put so much money from Congress into our infrastructure so that we can come up with these fixes, not only because we want to address the concerns we have about the future of heat waves, and certainly you've pointed out how quickly New Jersey is heating up, but also so that we can better address, as we did, for example, through the Inflation Reduction Act better address climate change itself. What are we emitting? How are we doing better by our environment and by the climate? Is there anything Congress can do to compel Amtrak to improve or replace equipment? Well, we are looking at that right now. Certainly, if Congress has appropriated

money to an organization that Congress does have say over how that organization proceeds in many ways and has the ability to implement that or affect that. So we're looking carefully at that. We are putting pressure on transportation. We are putting pressure on Amtrak so that we can understand what the plan is. We now are hearing that they are going to study exactly what the problems are. I hope that study includes not just the rail and the overhead wires, but also the signal failures and switches. all of the things that we have seen over the years

have impacted the commute right now with the money that Congress has designated, now is the time to really update these lines to make sure that we are running a modern system. And something else that's really concerning to me is New Jersey, as you mentioned, NJ Transit rents these lines from Amtrak to the tune of almost $100 million a year.

That is supposed to go to maintenance. So I would like to better understand how that money is being used as well. Yeah, let's talk about NJ Transit. You called on the agency to halt the 15% rate hikes that went into effect at the start of the month until the agency can improve rail service. But aren't those rate hikes, along with the newly instituted corporate transit fee, supposed to be the funding streams that get NJT Transit out of its budget hole and kickstart these sorts of capital investments? Look, I think we need a pause here. You can't have people experiencing one of the worst commutes that they've experienced and then suggest that you're going to,

hikes the rates on them. I mean, you know, my husband has called me over the past couple weeks to say, you know, can you get one of our kids to lacrosse practice? Because I'm not going to make it home. I was going to go. The story in my home is reverberating throughout my community. A lot of my communities were built up along the commuter rail lines. Madison, Chatham, South Orange, Maplewood. These are all towns along the rail lines. And so, as you can imagine, when people move to our community so they can get in and out of the city quickly, they can get to and from work quickly so they can spend more time with their family. This doesn't just impact people's ability to get to work.

It impacts their ability to get home for dinner or to see a kid's game. It really is a crisis when the commute is so incredibly horrible. That's Representative Mikey Cheryl of the great state of New Jersey. Congresswoman, thanks so much for joining us. And thanks so much for having me. Two Brooklyn teens drowned in the waters off Reese Park in the Rockaways, and it's raising concerns about safety at the city's beaches. WMYC's Liam Quigley reports,

Reese Beach is rapidly eroding, and that makes rip currents stronger. Pray for my son. Pray for my son. Pray for my son. That's Aminatu Noah, pleading on a video she posted to Facebook after her son, Elijah Chandler,

and his friend Christian Perkins, were swept out to see at Rees Beach last month. Their bodies were found a week later. Experts say the strong currents that put the boys at risk are caused, at least in part, by rapid erosion at Rees Beach. The sand along the banks is quickly disappearing,

which is clear to anyone who swims there. All that was Zooms. All that was zooms. It was really pretty. Now the dooms are gone. You're pointing towards Rockaway? Yeah, towards the Rockway. That's Samir Arboletta. He's been coming to Respeach since 2005.

The Army Corps of Engineers dumped hundreds of tons of sand there last year, but it's all been washed away. Our Boletta points out a new rock jetty that divides the rockways. The beaches to the east are owned by the city and have seen extensive repairs in recent years. But Reese is managed by the federal government. And aside from last year's sand dump, it's mostly been neglected. Do you see the jetties, those rocks that are long, that wasn't there. Those big boulders, perpendicular to the shore, are actually called.

groins. They aren't just for show. Rob Young is an expert on shorelines and erosion at Western Carolina University. The groins are there to stop the sand from moving down the beach. The structures protect the city-owned beaches from tides and rip currents, but the ones at Rees Beach are old, and the sand there is quickly fading away. Wherever the last groin is, that's where you have problems. Young says the fixes to the groins at the city-owned rockways are creating erosion at Rees Beach. That causes danger of swimming conditions at the exact spot where the teenagers drowned. The National Park Service says they don't have any immediate plans to install new barriers to address the problem. And Rob Young says climate change isn't helping. The beaches just move.

So right now we're experiencing rising sea level globally. And the beaches are trying to move landward in response to that rising sea level. Parts of Reese Beach are likely to be closed for the rest of the summer. You can check the National Park Service website at nps.gov before you go. Liam Quigley, WNYC News. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day,

for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you this evening.