Nearly 200 Damage Complaints Filed In Bayside After Storm

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — After the remnants of Hurricane Ida inundated the city with torrential rains and deadly flooding last week, officials asked New Yorkers to call 311 to report damage to their homes or streets.

In Bayside, where the storm flooded major roadways to the point of ocean-like conditions, residents appear to have heeded that call.

During the past week — from the evening of Sept. 1 when the storm rolled in, through Wednesday, Sept. 8 — neighbors in Bayside filed nearly 200 complaints to 311 about sewer backup, flooding, fallen trees, and general storm-related damage, city records show. The week before only 28 complaints came in about those same issues.

Patch mapped the complaints to show which parts of Bayside suffered damage from the storm. Click through the map below to explore each damage report. (Brown markers indicate backed-up sewers; blue are flooding issues; green are fallen trees, and purple are general storm-related damage.)

Mapping storm-related 311 complaints in Bayside

Nearly 100 residents reported sewer backups to 311, making that issue the most common storm-related complaint in Bayside.

Sewer backup reports, and water leaks, came from residential buildings clustered along the Clearview Expressway and the Cross Island Parkway — the latter which is one of the neighborhood's thoroughfares that flooded beyond recognition during the storm.

A cluster of downed tree reports came from the parkland near Queensborough Community college, and a number of complaints were filed near Crocheron Park.

Neighbors told Patch that Wednesday's storm eroded paths in Crocheron Park, downed trees, and dragged sediment into the park's pond, which some worry could make the body of water inhospitable to wildlife.

No Bayside residents died in the storm, but in the nearby neighborhood of Flushing three people were found dead in their basement unit. The trio are among at least 11 New Yorkers were trapped during the storm and drowned.

All told, the hurricane is now linked to the death of at least 13 New Yorkers, most of whom lived in Queens.

Government response to the storm

In the week after the storm, city officials and President Biden alike, have called for action to address climate change and invest in climate-resilient infrastructure, especially in frontline, low-income communities, like those in southeast Queens where a mother and son died last Wednesday night.

"The threat [of climate change] is here, and it's not going to get any better. The question is if it's going to get any worse," said the president on Tuesday, speaking from a block in East Elmhurst, a community where one elderly woman died during the storm.

Critics, however, pushed back against the city and the federal governments’ responses, suggesting that local officials could have done more to alert New Yorkers about the flooding and ensure their safety, and that the president should focus on the Green New Deal and building “fossil free” infrastructure.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who stood by his administration's response, admitted that the city's weather predictions were "made a mockery of in a matter of minutes" and warned New Yorkers to assume the worst going forwards.

"From now on what I think we do is tell New Yorkers to expect the very, very worst. It may sound alarmist at times, but unfortunately, it's being proven by nature," he said. The de Blasio Administration plans to revamp the city's disaster notification system, especially for at-risk residents of basement apartments, and issue more travel bans, during future storms.