NYC NOW - Midday News: Bob Menendez Seeks Leniency at Sentencing, NYC Braces for High Winds, and Frozen Fire Hydrants

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez will ask for leniency at his sentencing on federal corruption charges. Meanwhile, New York City building officials are warning property owners to secure their buildings and construction sites as wind gusts up to 50 mph are forecast for Wednesday. Plus, frozen fire hydrants have slowed the FDNY's response to several fires this winter. WNYC’s David Furst speaks with Chief of Fire Operations Kevin Woods about how the department handles the issue.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Wednesday, January 29th. Here's the midday news from David First. Former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez will ask for leniency from a federal judge today at his sentencing for corruption. WNYC's Nancy Solomon reports. Menendez was convicted in July on 16 counts of bribery, obstruction of justice, and acting as a foreign agent. The scheme involved a deal with Egypt, which gave a

New Jersey businessman a lucrative monopoly to certify halal meat imports. In exchange, Menendez helped get a weapons deal for Egypt. The FBI found nearly half a million dollars in cash and gold bars at the home the senator shares with his wife. Prosecutors are asking for a 15-year sentence, but the Menendez defense team says two years would be more than enough punishment. because the senator has already lost his job, his reputation, and his friends. It's been 44 years since a U.S. Senator was sent to prison. New York City building officials are warning property owners to secure their buildings and construction sites with up to 50-mile-per-hour wind gusts in today's forecast.

The buildings department says it will be doing random spot checks around the city and issuing violations, including stop work orders if necessary. According to officials, structures that need securing include cranes, scaffolding, and hoists. They're urging New Yorkers to contact 311 to report risky conditions and 911 in case of emergency. 47 degrees right now, we do have that wind advisory in effect until 10 p.m. possible gusts up to 50 miles per hour. It will be partly sunny today, a slight chance of showers this afternoon. Tonight, mostly clear and cold, a low of 23. Stay close. There's more after the break.

When temperatures drop, the danger of fires in the city can go up as people turn to space heaters to stay warm. But another weather-specific issue can make those fires harder to fight. In several fires in the city so far this winter, responding firefighters have been met with frozen fire hydrants, forcing them to look for other ones that were still operational and potentially costing them crucial time. Here to talk about it is Kevin Woods. He is the chief of fire operations for the FDNY. Kevin, how are hydrants able to freeze in the first place? Is there no technology to prevent that? Yes. Well, this is not something new. We have, in the FDMI, we have many redundancies when we come across a frozen hydrant. And what we do is we relay water from another workable hydrant. It may be one or even two hydrants away.

and we use our apparatus additional hose to relay from one fire engine, which we also call a fire pumper to another, and of course our firefighters. So, yes, it does delay getting water on the fire, but our apparatus also have 500 gallons of booster water in there. So we will start the operation as other units are relaying from a positive, when we have water from a fire hydrant, we call it a positive water source. So if that positive water source, we will use that 500 gallons of boost of water,

even if there's another apparatus close, 1,000 gallons of water just for life safety purposes of the residents in these buildings. So you can get started right away temporarily. We had a very cold stretch recently, Kevin. And what, if anything, does the fire department do to winterize the hydrants? Well, we don't winterize the hydrants. It doesn't work that way. It does not work that way. So underneath our water that we get out of our faucet comes from the same water main as the fire hydrant.

So the water mains are approximately three feet below grade. Connected to that water main is a barrel. That's the fire hydrant. And on top of that fire hydrant is an operating nut. that opens a valve three feet below grade. So just like any sort of plumbing, the valve could be defective. And if the valve is defective and water is trickling into that hydrant, there are also drains at the base. That could be defective.

No, there are 170,000 hydrants in New York City. The New York City Fire Department inspects every hydrant twice a year. So that we've reported to DEP. But if there is something going on underground and the hydrant does freeze, Sometimes, unfortunately, we find out during a situation where there is a fire. So we do have redundancies for this, and our FDMI firefighters are very, very good at what they do. You do have redundancies for this. But what happens if multiple hydrants are frozen in a location when a fire is in progress?

Again, we have the booster water in the apparatus, and we will continue to search for other hydrants. Very rarely do we have blocks and blocks of frozen hydrants, very rarely. We did have some very cold weather the last two weeks. And out of, let's say, a hundred structural fires, we had four or five incidents with frozen hydrants, and we were able to rapidly overcome that and get water on the fire. Was there a delay? Absolutely. And just very briefly, in a recent post to social media, the FDNY talks about trucks outfitted with a specialized thawing apparatus, which can go to the scene of a fire to unfreeze hydrants, but it doesn't sound like a fast process. What would help the fire department to be able to save time when dealing with something like that?

So, yeah, we have thawing apparatus, and we've had them for many, many years. And not only that would take a while for them to respond to the fire. So they thaw recently used. We've hydrants, maybe the drain isn't operating properly, it could be a defective valve, or recently tested fire hydrants. What we do at most operations, even if it's a report of a fire, report of a smoke, that fire engine, fire pumper will move up to a hydrant. That's another safety message we like to send that we need 30 feet, 15 feet on each side of that hydrant for that apparatus to get into that hydrant, and they will test that hydrant. even if there's no fire showing.

And sometimes that hydrant doesn't work. So we will report that out to our thawing apparatus and they'll get out there and to DEP, and they'll get out there and thaw that hydride. So, you know, a lot of people... Thank you for explaining all of the detail. I'm, you know, coming at this from a lack of knowledge. So it's great to hear about how all of this works.

Our guest, Kevin Woods, Chief of Fire Operations for the FDNY. Thank you for joining us. Yes, thank you for having me. 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.