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New Jersey Governor Speaks after Ida's Remnants Unleash Deadly Floods; New York City Mayor and Governor Tour Communities after Deadly Flooding; New York Governor Speaks after Deadly Flooding. Aired 10:30- 11a ET

Aired September 02, 2021 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:30:01]

GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): Yes. It is a great question. We had this very conversation, the colonel and I and others, this morning. Thank God, the alerts worked in this case, right? So, as bad as the damages behind us, I'm told that family was in the house, they went to the basement and they're alive as a result of it. Steve, you told me last night, you went to the basement. People did the right thing.

I don't know. This is a personal opinion. I'm not sure and we're going to look at this. I'm not sure it is a difference of the alerts, because the alerts did go out. I got them myself on my phone. But I think people hear flooding and they hear tornado, and I think perhaps they put them into a different category. And, sadly, we can't do that. And people pay with their lives as a result of that yesterday. But we're going to look at the entire system. There were too many cars on the road and too many cars. Thank God, most of them were abandoned and people got out safely, but that was not the case for everyone, sadly.

Please?

REPORTER: I have a question for the mayor.

MURPHY: Please, come on, Lou.

REPORTER: Obviously, this is something that you do not see here very often. (INAUDIBLE) and can you talk a little bit about what happened when the first responders arrived?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure, yes. Obviously, this is an unprecedented event for us locally and even regionally. And what I will say is how impressed I was as I arrived at our office of operation for emergency management and our fire hall last night, maybe at 6:45. And at that point, it was just me and my OEM director and a couple of firefighters. And I watched the process coordinated by the county, and I want to give the county their due with Director Damminger, and that is the way it is supposed to work, where everything is coordinated through the country. I watched it crystallize in front of my eyes over the next 30, 40, 50, 60 minutes where everything was coordinated and nothing was dispatched. We have people filling the room, ready to work and that is the other part of this. The support from our neighboring communities and from individuals just showing up in the middle of, at that point, a torrential rain storm after the tornado had left, and filling our fire house, ready to be dispatched but not doing anything based on our local OEM directive that we have to hear from the county first.

They did a stellar job. Thank God. And only by the grace of God was there no loss of life or serious injury to be dealt with during that critical first hour or 90 minutes, but by the time we got through that, the coordination, it was like clockwork and it was really something to behold. And I literally was just watching it all happen, incredible.

REPORTER: Where do you go from here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where we go from here is it is a focus on our residents and their health and wellbeing, first of all. And, therefore, if there is a sheltering need or any type support, that is coming to us in spades, where we're just getting so much offers for that. That will be our focus and we have that coordinated locally from a township perspective and then it becomes about these homes and the damage to them and the digging out, cleaning up and rebuilding.

And, look, that is where Americans, New Jerseyans, quintessentially come together. And we saw it last night and we're seeing it now. Everybody supports one another. The help will be there. We'll clean up, we'll dig out, we'll rebuild.

I want to make one final comment, the governor and, again, I cannot thank enough the fact that the levels of support from all levels of government. I got my congressman, from a different district, by the way, Congressman Norcross is here. I've got obviously my district, legislative district representatives here, my good friends, Senate President Sweeney and Bob Damminger, and the governor comes down. So that support is incredible.

But at the end of the day, what the governor said, it is residential impact and business impact, locally, we were lucky enough where not many of our businesses were physically impacted. However, and this is the last comment I want to make and put a light on it, we had our farming community effected. And that is -- they are the foundational pillar of where we are and they have been for generations. Locally, the Grasso Family Farm was devastated. It is basically gone. And speaking with him at 11:30 last night, he is devastated.

But as he said, will rebuild. He had his farming community around him pledging their support to help him get through the rest of the season and somehow salvage whatever that might be and rebuild. And just north of us, in Mantua, the Eachus Farm, the largest dairy farm, I believe, Governor, in the state, with 250-plus cows, where we're told, at this point, they've lost as much as a hundred of those cows. It is devastating to that business and to that culture and I want everybody to just keep them in your thoughts and prayers now. [10:35:00]

MURPHY: Well said.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

MURPHY: And, Lou, you make a very important point. It is farms here and then if you go into the central part of the state, northern part of the state, it is main street businesses. I saw a video of Millburn in Essex County last night. You and I looked at that, a raging river down -- right down the middle of town. And those -- all those small businesses are crushed in the farms down here, are crushed and there are homes obviously in all over the state.

Maybe take one more, we've got to keep up.

REPORTER: Governor, your DEP position was down in (INAUDIBLE) Township last week?

MURPHY: Yes.

REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) Township, Senator Testa helped set it up.

MURPHY: Yes.

REPORTER: They were asking in for storm mitigation protection measures. He left without committing any. What do you guys say about that?

MURPHY: Listen, he's doing a lot, in fairness to him. The DEP has just, you may have seen, put out a big report with the Army Corps of Engineers, which is a preliminary report, but a big one as it relates to resiliency up against storms. That is more focused on the shore than it is on the -- the shore largely was in -- was -- came through last night okay. Most of what we're dealing, the overwhelming amount, what we're dealing with is inland. But they'll be there, I promise you.

But it is the -- game-changer will be continuing to do what we're doing and, God willing, do more. And then with Donald's help and other colleagues, adding on top of that the federal money to -- really, that's the game-changer in terms of building a resilient infrastructure we need. Maybe one last one, sir.

REPORTER: Just for Bob, can you name the municipalities Gloucester County that's (INAUDIBLE) you know there's damage?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Harrison Township, where we're at --

MURPHY: Bob, do you mind coming in, Bob?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Harrison Township, where we're at right now, Mullica Hill, Woodbury Heights, Deptford, Wenonah was hit hard. Several of the other towns weren't hit as hard but just got a piece of it, but Mantua was hit hard. Mantua, Wenonah, Harrison township, I think, were the hardest hit. And on the outskirts, Woodbury Heights, a little bit of Woodbury and Deptford.

And I just want to let you know, and to the people that live here, and the residents that are here, I know every one of these gentlemen very well, they're standing around me. This is not just a photo-op for a bunch of politicians to stand here. These people will be here for the residents of this community and the rest of Gloucester County. And they'll all tell you, they're all men of their words. We're not walking away from anybody. We'll be here through the process, right, Governor?

MURPHY: You bet, you Bob.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you can count on us. If you need anything, you call me in the county, you call your local legislature, our congressman that will help out and all the way up to the governor. So we're here for the duration. We're not going anywhere.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: The end of the press conference there as we go to a -- this the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, updating on rescue efforts there. Let's have a listen.

GOV. KATHY HOCHUL (D-NY): Good morning. I want to thank the individuals who have joined us here this morning. Senator Schumer, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Congressman Meeks, our borough president, Donovan Richards, as well as Borough President Adams.

We're here today because of a devastating storm that shocked the people of this city and even the morning after, we're still uncovering the true depth of the loss, the human loss, which is hard to imagine that people simply in their cars, in their homes, in their basements, succumbed to the ravages of a brutal storm and their families must just be in such pain this morning. So to all of them, we offer our love, our condolences and our wishes for their healing. And we'll be there to support them.

And this is all precipitated by last night's record-shattering rainfall. And what is so fascinating is that the records that were broken in Central Park, for example, 3.15 inches in one hour, it broke a record literally set one week earlier. That says to me that there are more -- no more cataclysmic unforeseeable events. We need to foresee these in advance and be prepared.

And we learned a lot of lessons from Sandy. We built back resilient. Our coastline shorelines are in much better shape than they had been. But where we have a vulnerability is in our streets with the higher elevations now, where the flash floods, which were unknown before. This is the first time we've had a flash flood event on this proportion in the city of New York and in the outlying areas. We have not experienced this before but we should expect it next time.

And that means we have to continue investments in infrastructure, working in partnership with our federal government and support from Senator Schumer and President Biden, who are working so hard, so hard to get the infrastructure dollars back to our states so we can build this up, working in partnership with the mayor and other officials to work collaboratively and get this done so we could take care of the drainage shortcomings in our streets, because when the streets get flooded, what happens next?

[10:40:15]

The water rushes down, not just through the highways but also finds its way to penetrate our subway system. And as a result, what happened yesterday, trains were shut down, people were stranded, the fear that they must have experienced when this occurred, I cannot imagine. And I don't want this to happen again.

So what we're doing yesterday in preparation, we directed all of our state resources to be prepared, our DOT, Thruway Authority, MTA, Port Authority, all of our first responders embedded with the local teams here and throughout Long Island, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Putnam, Rockland Counties, all of those have suffered some form of loss. We wanted to make sure our crews were on the ground.

We also have pumping systems in the case taking care of the subways, literally removing the water physically. And I want to thank, first of all, everyone who was involved last night, but our transit workers are heroes, especially all of the bus operators who had to be deployed to literally take people from stations to where they needed to go. So it's an extraordinary rescue operation just a few short hours ago.

Moments ago, I was on the phone with the White House, President Biden called, offered any assistance, he repeated, any assistance that the state of New York needs. I told him we'll take him up on that. And what happens next, we'll be doing on-the-ground assessments of the damage with the FEMA team, our local partners and making sure we get a true accounting of the loss.

But he promised that he'll guarantee -- he said, I guarantee you, I will approve any declaration you need, emergency declaration, so we can get the money flowing to New York, to our municipalities, to our cities, to our citizens, businesses affected and certainly to the homeowners.

And also with respect to the homeowners who have experienced the flooding in their own basements, I've directed the Department of Financial Services to be in contact immediately with their insurance providers so they get people on the ground, show up in these neighborhoods, get your claims adjustors, let them start filing to get reimbursed for the damages. We have mobile units on the ground to this end as well.

So, right now, we still have limited services on the subway. I'll be heading out to Long Island to see some damage that occurred out there shortly. But Metro North, LIRR and the subway systems are not fully functioning at this time. But I want people to stay engaged following the information and to make sure that they stay safe.

I want to conclude by saying once again, New Yorkers show what they're made out of. The collaboration going on, the constant communication between our teams is something that perhaps you don't see in the public, but it is real, it makes a difference and it helps save lives. And, Lilly (ph), I want to thank our partners at the state level as well, state police and our rescue teams, had to rescue over 100 people in Westchester and Rockland County alone.

So this is the scenario, as we speak today, but I'll be giving continuing reports. What I wanted to do first was assess where we are today, with my next question is, where are we going next? How do we prevent this from happening? How do we get money and resources to the places so we can build up the resiliency in streets?

Before we worried about the coastal areas, now it is about what is happening in the streets. The drainage systems that needs to be enhanced and all of the resilience because of climate change, unfortunately, this is something we're going to have to deal with with great regularity, and we want to assure all New Yorkers that we're prepared for this and we'll do everything in our power to protect human life and property.

Thank you very much. With that, I'd like to introduce Senator Schumer, who has been very engaged, as we spoke this morning already, and I want to thank him for his partnership.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Okay, thank you, Governor. And, first, to my condolences and heart and prayers to all of the families who have lost loved ones. Imagine the horror of sitting in your own basement apartment and the water just floods in all of a sudden with no notice, and you struggle to get out but you can't. It is an awful, awful situation. And our hearts go out to them.

I too want to thank all of our New Yorkers at the city and the state level, as well as the other localities, who always go all out. Unfortunately, we in New York have experienced too many emergencies in the last decade. And the one thing we've learned through these emergencies is how strong New Yorkers are and how much our public servants want to go all out and risk their lives to preserve other people's lives, and we thank them.

[10:45:01]

I'm going to make two points here. Number one, we will do everything we can to get all of the federal aid that is needed. We did this after Sandy. We've done it after many other storms, upstate, the governor knows when we worked together on these storms upstate. And I spoke this morning to FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. The good news here is you know what her job was before she was FEMA administrator. She was the city's OEM commissioner. So she knows New York well.

We will fight and make this -- make New York declared a disaster area, I've spoken to the White House as well, and that will mean money, money for homeowners and individuals, money for small businesses that may have been lost, and money to our cities, state and other local governments for the amount of money that they've had to lay out to deal with this crisis.

And I will make sure, as I have in the past, that no stone is left unturned and all of the federal largesse, and the federal government, we know, when a disaster hits one area, the whole country comes together and helps. And that is what we're going to ask here for New York, just as we're helping in California with the fires and out west with the fires, et cetera.

And that relates to my second and final point. Global warming is upon us. When you get two record rainfalls in a week, it is not just coincidence. When you get all of the changes that we've seen in weather, that is not a coincidence. Global warming is upon us and it is going to get worse and worse and worse unless we do something about it. And that is why it is so imperative to pass the two bills, the infrastructure bill, and the budget reconciliation bill.

The second deals with climate change. And will reduce the amount of carbon we've put into the atmosphere by 50 percent by 2030. The first bill deals with infrastructure and built in that infrastructure is something I have started fostering with Sandy, that we don't just build infrastructure, but we built resilient infrastructure. So when these floods or fires or anything else occurs, they are much more resistant. And you saw some results of that from the Sandy money but we need much more of it. And these bills do that.

Woe is us if we don't recognize these changes are due to climate change. Woe is us if we don't do something about it quickly, both in building resilient infrastructure and going to clean power, whether it is in homes, in electricity, in transportation, to stop the global warming or at least reduce its awful effects on this country.

I want to thank the governor for being here right on the spot. I want to thank the mayor. He's always available, our borough president and our great congressman who I work on these federal issues, Greg Meeks, John Liu, Daneek Miller, and everyone who is here, thank you.

And now it is my honor to call on Mayor de Blasio.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D-NEW YORK CITY, NY): Thank you, Senator. Senator Schumer is right. We are in a whole new world now. Let's be blunt about it. We saw a horrifying storm last night, unlike anything we've seen before. And this is a reality we have to face. Unfortunately, the price paid by some New Yorkers, it was horrible and tragic.

We have now lost nine New Yorkers to the storm, nine people who were alive at this exact moment yesterday, no idea that such a horrible fate could befall them. Families in mourning right now, we need to be there for them and for all of the New Yorkers who right now are dealing with the results of this horrifying storm.

I want to thank Senator Schumer. We spoke earlier today, I know he will get us the maximum federal aid. Our homeowners need it, our business owners need it. People are going through hell right now. They need help. I thank President Biden and Senator Schumer for being willing immediately to help.

Governor Hochul, we spoke repeatedly last night and this morning. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for the way the state of New York responded. We are truly all in this together. And storms affect all of us. But what we have to recognize is the suddenness, the brutality of storms now. It is different. A record set two weeks ago, another record set now, rainfall like we haven't seen ever before. This is the biggest wake-up call we could possibly get.

[10:50:01]

We're going to have to do a lot of things differently and quickly.

But what is a constant is our first responders. I want to thank the men and women of the FDNY and EMS, NYPD, Environmental Protection, all the agencies that were out in force last night rescuing hundreds and hundreds of New Yorkers. So many lives were saved because of the fast, courageous response of our first responders. People helped from a subway train safely, people helped out of a car in the flooded area, this happened literally hundreds of times last night. And God bless our first responders who were there.

We have got a lot of work to do right now to help New Yorkers recover but we also have a lot of work to do to change the very approach. I agree with the governor, it is time for an entirely different approach because we're getting a signal here. And it is not going to be easy. We're going to need all of that help possible from the federal government.

But in our time, we have to make this change. We've gotten the message. We have to make a change to protect the lives of the people of this city. Thank you.

And now I would like to call on someone who has been tremendously helpful and always makes sure we get help, Congressman Gregory Meeks.

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D-NY): First, let me give my condolences to the family members, to the friends, the relatives, the neighbors on this block who have to be devastated. One day, it is a beautiful day. And we know that in Queens, neighborhoods are families, black associations working together, neighbors protecting neighbors' homes.

This is absolutely devastating and my heart reaches out to each and every one on this block and in this family, a mother, a son gone from us because of climate change and these record storms, storms that were once in 500 years, I'm told. Now that we have got a look at them to be storms that come in a regular manner, more intense as indicated.

And so I want to thank -- I spoke to Speaker Pelosi to make sure that we work very closely with Senator Schumer, so there is no separation between the House and the Senate and I think all of the members of the United States Congress and bringing the resources here to the city of New York. Let me thank the mayor and the governor for their working on this instantaneously.

Now, we know we happen to be here in Southeastern Queens in the fifth congressional district knowing that we need infrastructure. It is absolutely crucial and important that we pass reconciliation. One of the reasons why it is important, I know for flooding in Southeastern Queens, I have a request in now that was passed in the House but has got to be passed in the reconciliation bill, for some close to $4 million just for blocks like these, to improve the infrastructure and to stop the flooding that we know takes place here. And if you just looked at what this place looked like in these pictures now at 10:00 P.M. last night, it was devastating.

And, finally, let me say thank you to all of the men and women working and of our emergency services and the heroes and she-roes, as the governor indicated, from our transportation. Now, when I looked at the number of bus drivers and the people in the subway systems getting people out into safety, also rescuing people that were stuck in their cars, they are really heroes, putting themselves at risk for the rest of us.

So, again, thank you. I want to thank my city councilman who has been working here for a long period of time in this very block, trying to make a difference for the people of this district. For all of the hard work that you do, and the city council and our former borough president, now D.A., Melinda Katz, for all that she does.

So, now, I want to bring up the current borough president who is working very hard to make sure that this borough receives all of the infrastructure dollars and the attention that it rightfully needs, Donovan Richards.

DONOVAN RICHARDS, QUEENS BOROUGH PRESIDENT: Thank you, Congressman, and thank you to the governor and the mayor for their support this morning or into the wee early morning hours.

[10:55:07]

I want to thank all of the agencies.

First off, let me start by saying that we mourn -- all 2.4 million Queens residents mourn the lives of those lost on the early morning hours due to this catastrophic storm. Let me also just say that we've surveyed a lot of different communities across the borough and I'm happy to say that Rosedale and the Rockaways, because of the investment by the city, I want to thank the mayor for his $2 billion investment into Southern Queens. We definitely saw a different story this time around based on that investment.

But we know that is still not enough. And that is why we're here today. We need Washington, D.C. to move with a level of urgency. We've been here before, in Hurricane Sandy. We still are waiting for the Rockaway reformulation plan. We have a Howard Beach plan. There are many parts of this borough that historically have flooded and it is only going to get worse.

And, unfortunately, if we do not address climate change, we will continue to lose lives across not just this borough but across this country and state and we don't have to look any further in Louisiana to see what also happened there as well.

A few things I want to mention to homeowners out there today. Please document all of your loss or losses, I I've spoken to some homeowners, put up claim and with the control as well as with your insurance companies as well. I know that a lot of residents struggle with flood insurance, but these are some key things to do. I'm also asking companies to allow their workers to work remote on today. And if you're not an essential worker, to really stay off of the roads as well.

For the neighborhoods of Whitestone College Point and parts of Flushing, Lefrak, I want you to know that we are here. I've asked the governor on today for assistance to our small businesses until our homeowners as well, and she's given her stamp of approval on all of those things.

So, there is a lot of work that needs to be done. We are not out of the woods. Queens needs to see much more infrastructure investment. We cannot wait until tomorrow. We need it today. These lives could have been saved if we had investment that we certainly needed a long time ago.

With that being said, it brings me great honor to bring up my colleague, someone who worked with me from my time being the Environmental Protection chairman in the council, him being a civil service and labor, someone who worked to secure $2 billion for South Queens, I. Daneek Miller. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning. First of all, my condolences to the Ramstrick (ph) family and I want to thank the governor, the mayor, Senator Schumer, Congress member, borough president and just collaboration of folks of government that have come together to address this issue, and they have done so very well, articulated the issues of climate change and infrastructure, like the lack thereof.

But all politics are local and I think the congressman had mentioned that we -- I have spent the better part of ten years on this street here. And I probably had about 6 to 12 inches of water in my basement this morning. But I always say that you feel like the man with no shoes until you come over here on 183rd Street and then you see the man with no feet, right, where -- I bet you this is my mother. Every time you get to a mic --

HOCHUL: Tell your mom you're okay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You better pick that up.

HOCHUL: Mom, your son is doing okay. He's doing a press conference. We've got your little boy in good hands.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my gosh.

HOCHUL: He's looking good. He's safe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have got to make sure it is his mother.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's my mother. Right, so, um, yes, we felt like the -- until you see the person with no feet, where folks here have a foot of water on the first floor and not in the basement.

And the cruel irony is, as Borough President Richards indicated of the $2 billion in infrastructure that was spent and nearly half of the city's infrastructure budget spent here in Southeast Queens, the priority was 183rd Street. When that schedule came out, we said, no, don't do Cambria Heights, don't do Springfield Gardens, do 183rd Street first. And guess what? They did. And then they did it again because it wasn't done right the first time and we're still here today.

[11:00:04]

And so there has to be oversight. And we have to figure out what we're not doing right.