How New York City is preparing for extreme heat

AccuWeather

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.

Transcript

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.

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