If you’ve paid attention to news at all recently you’ve probably seen that New York City is under water. You can see pictures of the flooding here. A week ago, the city declared a state of emergency. According to this BBC article, “Many of the city’s subway systems, streets and highways have flooded, while at least one terminal at LaGuardia Airport closed on Friday before later reopening.” It’s difficult to believe a city as advanced as NYC could struggle so much with drainage, but I guess that’s what happens when the sky drops two inches of rain per hour for multiple hours on end.
The New York Times reports, “All drainage systems have their limitations and New York City’s is 1.75 inches of rainfall per hour.” They continued, “The rush-hour downpour on Friday overwhelmed the 7,400 miles of pipes that carry storm water and sewage under the city’s hard surfaces to treatment plants or into the nearest rivers and bays. The runoff backed up into the streets, causing flooding that swamped cars and seeped into basements and subway stations in Brooklyn and Queens.” That number of miles is roughly the distance between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia! Yet, they are still no match for mother nature. All I know is New York will have to do some serious work on their storm and sewer systems to make sure this does not happen in the future.
Apex Plumbing specializes in underground plumbing including storm and sewer pipes. We’ve worked on commercial and municipal projects around Denver for storm water so we can appreciate the sheer amount of water it must’ve taken to overwhelm NYC’s systems. Our thoughts and prayers are with those in New York as they work on mitigating the water damage. We will continue to work in and around Denver to help with our own storm and sewer pipes. We also realize flooding can happen in your home due to bad water or sewer lines, and we specialize in that too. If you are in need of your own sewer repair or water line replacement, contact Apex today!
