Roosevelt Islander Online: No Practical Plan In Place To Safely Evacuate Roosevelt Island Residents In Event Of Emergency Says Assembly Member Micah Kellner - Asks Mayor Bloomberg For Meeting To Create Comprehensive Emergency Preparedness Plan For Roosevelt Island

Thursday, September 1, 2011

No Practical Plan In Place To Safely Evacuate Roosevelt Island Residents In Event Of Emergency Says Assembly Member Micah Kellner - Asks Mayor Bloomberg For Meeting To Create Comprehensive Emergency Preparedness Plan For Roosevelt Island

You Tube Video of Hurricane Irene East River Flooding on Roosevelt Island

Published report earlier this week on Hurricane Irene East River flooding portions of Roosevelt Island particularly at Lighthouse Park

Image of Roosevelt Island Lighthouse Park Flood From Hurricane Irene by Michael Girard

and the subway pier.

Images of East River Overflowing Roosevelt Island Subway Pier @ 9:30 AM From Eric Schwartzman

These pictures were taken at approximately 9:30 AM Sunday morning and though it is true that by noon the water was gone, the impact from Hurricane (Tropical Storm) Irene could have been much worse for Roosevelt Island if it had been a more severe storm. (More pictures of Roosevelt Island Flooding here)

Hoping to improve plans for Roosevelt Island emergency disaster preparedness, Roosevelt Island Assembly Member Micah Kellner sent the following letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

I would like to commend you and your staff on a great job preparing New Yorkers for Hurricane Irene. The decisions you made saved lives and showed the world the effectiveness of the City’s disaster response plan. Hurricane Irene has also provided a unique opportunity to see gaps in emergency planning, allowing us to correct them before future disasters occur. Specifically, I am concerned about protecting and evacuating the residents of Roosevelt Island, which is located in my district.

Roosevelt Island requires special consideration when it comes to emergency planning; the Island is home to two acute-care hospitals, Coler and Goldwater, and nearly 14,000 residents, many of whom are elderly or disabled. Further, as the Island looks to expand with the possible location of an applied sciences center, with the accompanying residents and staff, it is more important than ever to focus on emergency procedures. Had the City faced a more severe storm that required the evacuation of Zone “B”, there is currently no practical plan in place to safely evacuate Island residents.

Roosevelt Island only has a single ground access point – the Roosevelt Island Bridge – which connects the Island with western Queens. On Saturday, August 27, 2011 as the City was bracing for Irene’s impending arrival, you warned that the City’s bridges, including the Roosevelt Island Bridge, would be forced to close should sustained wind speeds reach 60 miles per hour. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s subway and bus service was suspended as of 12:00 PM. Also, the Roosevelt Island Tram was forced to close at 6:00 PM due to wind speeds that exceeded 45 miles per hour. Should the Bridge have been forced to close, Roosevelt Island would have been isolated from the rest of the City. While many of the evacuations throughout the City were smoothly executed, I fear that if the storm had been stronger we would be facing an extremely different and deadly outcome on Roosevelt Island.

Despite being a Class “B” Flood Zone, Roosevelt Island was not immune to flooding. During this storm, there was severe flooding in Lighthouse Park, which is located at the northern tip of the Island and adjacent to the Coler Hospital campus. The eastern seawall which runs along to the Goldwater Hospital campus, the future site of the applied sciences center at the southern end of the Island, also flooded. In light of Irene being downgraded to a tropical storm before reaching New York and still causing flooding in close proximity to these to these two acute care hospitals on separate ends of the Island, it is safe to say the situation would have been much more dire should a Class 1 or Class 2 hurricane have touched ground.

I believe we can use Hurricane Irene as a teachable moment to better identify innovative ways to improve disaster preparedness. I respectfully request that the Office of Emergency Management meet with the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation and local elected officials to discuss creating a comprehensive emergency preparedness plan for Roosevelt Island.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. If you would like to discuss this matter further, please contact me at (212) 860-4906.

Mr. Kellner's full letter is here.

I asked several Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) Directors and staff as well as Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) President Matt Katz for comment on Roosevelt Island emergency preparedness and Mr. Kellner's letter to Mayor Bloomberg.

Mr. Katz replied:

Some years ago, Howard Polivy, Frank Farance and I were allowed to read RIOC’s contingency planning book, but only after we signed a non-disclosure letter. We’ve been told that evacuation orders will come only from OEM and Newcomer High School is our evacuation center. Our CERT team had volunteers in place to prepare the center for use. Given that, as a Zone B community, we would not be evacuated ahead of time, how would we get a threatened population off-Island in the teeth of a storm? Once upon a time, RIOC’s Michael Moreo, a volunteer fireman in his Long Island community and the force behind the creation of our CERT team, convened quarterly contingency planning meetings that included building managers, Public Safety, OEM, SEMO and me. We asked for an evacuation plan to be made public but were turned down. I’ve asked RIOC to consider at least one meeting after the dust settles to do a post mortem on lessons learned. We shall see.

Last night, RIOC Community Relations Specialist Erica Wilder reported that RIOC will be holding a Post Hurricane Irene Briefing to explain

... RIOC's pre-event planning, operations during the storm and how we managed the recovery operation...

I will report back on that briefing.

Mr. Kellner' letter expresed concerns regarding the use of the Roosevelt Island Bridge during a hurricane. I asked RIOC prior to the storm beginning:

Mayor Bloomberg has stated that Bridges will be closed if winds reach a speed of 60 mph.

I'm getting questions about whether the Roosevelt Island Bridge will remain open.

Does RIOC expect to close the RI Bridge.

Ms. Wilder replied:

The Roosevelt Island Bridge is under the jurisdiction of New York City's Department of Transportation. In addition to the information outlets that we have provided through our advisories, we ask that everyone receive timely alerts on all New York City bridge closures and other significant events related to the storm via local news/ radio stations, 311 or through NYC's 24hr emergency notification system- NOTIFY NYC (www.nyc.gov/notifynyc) which delivers emergency public information through text, email, or recorded telephone calls.

Mr. Kellner's letter to the Mayor was incorrect in one respect. The Tram did shut down at 6 PM but not because wind speeds were in excess of 45 MPH at that time. Although, RIOC had previously announced they would keep the Tram running until wind speeds reached 45 MPH they shut the Tram down at 6 PM, hours before the Storm arrived. Not sure why they changed their previously announced plan for the Tram.

There was an emergency disaster preparedness meeting that took place on Roosevelt Island in 2006. Here's a video of that meeting and more pictures of East River Flooding of Roosevelt Island from what became Tropical Storm Irene.