AccuWeather caught up with Zachary Iscol, New York's commissioner of emergency management, to discuss how the city is helping residents prepare for deadly heat.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Joining us right now is Zachary Iskell, the Commissioner of New York City Emergency Management.
00:04We do appreciate you being with us this morning and want to get to some of the big problems that
00:09we have seen because the tropical rainstorm barrel that brought the flooding to parts of the region
00:16still dealing with some of those concerns. Yeah, well it's great to be with you and thanks so much
00:21for having us on and thanks for the work you do keeping people informed about the weather.
00:25We appreciate that so much. So the Commissioner of Remnants of Barrel has already brought
00:30flooding to parts of the region. So what are we concerned most about when it comes to the
00:35weather in New York City for today? Yeah, so as you sort of said earlier,
00:40the National Weather Service has put the New York City region, so that's not just New York City,
00:45but also you know parts of Nassau County, New Jersey, Connecticut in a flood watch. So when
00:50that happens, the city starts to prepare. A lot of work that we do, you know, we don't know
00:54exactly where the rain could fall. A lot of concrete in New York City, not a lot of places
00:59to absorb that water. So we start, you know, doing a lot of work with all of our agency partners to
01:05prepare the city. Clearing catch basins, making sure infrastructure is prepared, and then also a
01:10lot of work just making sure New Yorkers are aware of the hazards and that they have the information
01:15they need to keep themselves safe and their loved ones safe. Well hey, flooding and extreme heat are
01:20two of the main killers unfortunately when it comes to weather and New Yorkers have been dealing
01:23with the extreme heat as so much of the country has also been dealing with a lot of that. So what
01:30are you telling New York City residents and how are your teams preparing for the heat wave expected
01:35over the weekend and into next week? Yeah, so once again, a lot of work that the city does
01:40preparing for these types of weather events. You know, last year was the hottest year on record.
01:46May, I think, was also the hottest month of May on record. We've had a lot of periods of very high
01:53heat already this year in New York City and what we do is we activate our heat plan just the way
01:58that, you know, we activate our flash flood plan for those types of weather events. Work very
02:03closely with our utility partners to make sure that our infrastructure is prepared. Do a lot of
02:07work encouraging New Yorkers to help us protect the grid, right, reducing their energy consumption
02:13during peak hours. We open up cooling centers around the city. We'll be opening them up again,
02:19likely on Sunday, almost definitely on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday as we go into those
02:24periods of high heat. But as you said, heat is one of the biggest killers. We lose on average over
02:29350 New Yorkers a year to heat and heat-related illnesses. It's something that people need to
02:34take very, very seriously and so I encourage all New Yorkers to go to nyc.gov backslash beat the
02:40heat. We have a lot of great resources for New Yorkers on there. New Yorkers can sign up for a
02:46great program. We have the information on that site run by the federal government where they can get
02:50help. It's called HEAP, you know, buying cooling equipment, you know, air conditioners, fans in the
02:56summer, heating equipment in the winter from the state and the federal government. We have our map
03:01of cooling centers available on that and a lot of other tips of ways that you can, you know, beat the
03:05heat by staying hydrated, staying out of, you know, avoiding exertion and activities during peak
03:12hours of heat. So a lot of great information there and then also lastly just encourage all
03:16New Yorkers to sign up for Notify NYC, which is our public messaging system. We have over a million
03:21subscribers. It's available in 14 languages including American Sign Language and you can
03:25sign up by going to nyc.gov backslash notify. That's all incredible. Thank you so much. Zachary
03:31Commissioner of New York City Emergency Management. We really appreciate you being
03:35with us here on AccuWeather Early. Great to be with you. Thanks so much.