NYC NOW - November 8, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

Fire department officials are investigating after a car exploded in South Ozone Park, Queens Friday morning. Plus, New York City's medical examiner's office is leaving Queens and will instead consolidate those services in Brooklyn and Manhattan. And finally, WNYC’s Janae Pierre discusses New York City’s historic lack of rainfall with Rohit Aggarwala, commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. There were some pressurized cylinders in the vehicle. One of those cylinders experienced a failure that experienced this catastrophic explosion of the car. Fire department officials are investigating after a car exploded in South Ozone Park, Queens, Friday morning. residents in the area are still sifting through the damage. Houses along 133rd Street near 131st Avenue had blown out windows and shattered door frames as a result of the blast, which happened just before 7. Dinelle Horituron owns the Infinity SUV that exploded.

He says there was a small leak in a pressurized tank he was storing inside for his plumbing business. Secure your tanks. Secure your gas, six tanks. get the proper equipment and secured them properly. No one was hurt in the blast. The city's Department of Buildings is evaluating the damaged houses before allowing residents to return. New York City's medical examiner's office is no longer conducting autopsies in Queens.

It's instead consolidating those services in Brooklyn and Manhattan. WMYC's Caroline Lewis has more. The change in autopsy services is part of the city's effort to adapt to a worsening shortage. of medical examiners. City officials say the move has not caused any issues with funeral homes or families of the deceased and has helped make the agency more efficient. But the exodus of medical examiners in recent years has also affected courtroom testimonies and the city's protocols for investigating overdose deaths. The Doctors Council, the union that represents medical examiners,

says the city needs to make salaries more competitive to hold on to these specialists amid a national shortage. New York City remains under a drought watch. After the break, we discuss the impact on the city's water supply and share some practical advice. Stay close. You're listening to NYC now. Can you remember the last time it rained? Probably not, because it's been more than 40 days since we've seen measurable precipitation, and that has plunged New York City into one of the longest droughts in its recorded history. In response, Mayor Eric Adams has declared a citywide drought watch, urging residents to conserve water. I'm here with Rohit Agarwal. He's commissioner of the city's Department of Environmental Protection and its chief climate officer.

Commissioner, thanks for being here. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Can you start by giving us an overview of current conditions? Just how bad is it? Well, as you said, it's been roughly two months or more since we've had any real rain in New York City. and actually what's more important to us is not rain in the city. It's rain in our watershed up in Westchester and Putnam counties and in the Catskills, because that's where our reservoirs are.

That's where we need the rain. If you look at the rainfall that we have in an average year, we are six inches below the average rainfall in the last three months. And when it goes up in the watershed, that goes directly into our reservoirs, and that's a lot of our consumption. So we're in a really dry pattern. Looking ahead, the near-term forecasts are still pretty dry, and the medium-term forecasts, of course, are less accurate.

But even those suggest that November, December, even into January, will be drier than average. And it was that combination of what we've seen over the last two months, plus that forecast going ahead that really prompted the mayor to declare the drought watch. I'm listening to you here, and I've heard that keeping reservoir levels high is even more important because the city is spending $2 billion to repair a leak in the Delaware aqueduct that feeds water into the city. Can you explain how that project complicates conservation efforts? Well, it complicates some things. It doesn't complicate conservation efforts. So we still have the Delaware reservoirs that are a large chunk of our capacity are still there. They're suffering from drought just like all the other reservoirs, but we are not drawing down from the Delaware reservoirs right now because that aqueduct is under repair.

What it does complicate is the fact that as a result of not having access to those really large reservoirs, we are particularly focused on the rainfall in the crotauri. and reservoir system in Westchester Putnam in Dutchess counties. And that has actually been one of the absolute driest parts of the state during this. So it's hitting us at our most vulnerable point right now. Nobody need worry. Of course, we wouldn't have started this repair work if we didn't have lots of contingency plans. So we are planning for all different sorts of scenarios. But that is the issue that because we are drawing only from our Croton and Catskill reservoirs, we're particularly focused on the rainfall in those areas. Given the intensifying effects of climate change, do you see droughts like this becoming

more common? And if so, I'm wondering what specific steps is the city taking to handle dry periods like this? So first of all, yes, a drought like this is entirely consistent with all of the climate modeling. And we've known that for some time. We're lucky enough that over the long term, climate change is going to make the northeastern United States more wet rather than more dry. So we don't face the kind of existential long-term drought

risk, like places like the Western U.S. or Australia or parts of Europe are facing due to climate change. But alongside that overall wetter environment that we're going to have, what climate change also does is it makes everything much more extreme within it. And so here we are back in early August, we had the second most intense rainfall ever recorded in New York City in the eastern Bronx. And now, what, nine, ten weeks later, we're in the midst of an extreme drought. That is entirely what climate change means for us. So yes, we should expect more of it going forward. The good news, in general, New York City has large reserves, and let's be clear, we're in a drought watch.

We're not yet even in a drought warning. Things get really serious when we get to that. stage of being in a drought emergency. And so we still have a lot of water in our reservoirs. In general, New York City is really well positioned to deal with extreme droughts. What we are doing now is encouraging New Yorkers and working with city agencies to save water so that those supplies that we have last longer. Yeah. So let's talk more about that. Let's give some practical advice here. What should residents do to help manage this drought?

Well, let's see. One thing that I'm really grateful, and we've been asking people to do and we've gotten a lot more calls in, if you see an open fire hydrant, please call 311 immediately. That's one of the fastest ways we can waste a lot of water is when people open a fire hydrant. And we've seen more of that than is normal in early November recently just because the weather's been so hot. But at home, there are lots of things that we are urging people to do. One is if you have a lawn, or something like that, please don't water it if you don't need to. It is the end of the season. Grass isn't going to last forever. Please don't invest water in that when we might need it to drink next summer. Please don't wash your car on the street or in your driveway. If you wash your car with a hose, you're using lots and lots of water, whereas if you take it to a car wash, those mechanical systems are designed to conserve water. Similarly, you know, at home, if you've got a dishwasher, a full load, in a dishwasher is often more water efficient than washing dishes by hand. Please don't run the washing machine with only a couple of pieces in it. And the other thing is really showers. A shower can

use between five and seven gallons of water every minute. So shaving just a couple of minutes off of your shower can make a big contribution as well. Rohit Agarwal is Commissioner of New York City's Department of Environmental Protection. Thanks for your time. Thank you. And thank you for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. I'd like to take a moment to shout out our production team. It includes Sean Boutage, Amber Bruce, Owen Kaplan, Audrey Cooper, Leora Noam Kravitz, Jared Marcel, and Wayne Schoemeister, with help from all of my wonderful colleagues in the WNYC Newsroom.

Our show art was designed by the people at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadrato. I'm Jena Pierre. Have a lovely holiday weekend. on Monday.