Metro

NYC to set record rainfall totals for March

The latest batch of heavy rains in the New York City area flooded roads and basements and was in position to set a rainfall record, but some officials on Monday were more focused on the accompanying winds and what potential damage they could do.

During a soaking windstorm earlier this month, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers lost power, many for several days, when strong winds loosened trees from already saturated ground and tossed them onto power lines. Others saw their homes badly damaged when oaks and pines crashed onto their roofs.

“Our ground is so wet it’s like pouring water into an already saturated sponge,” said Tony Sutton, commissioner of Emergency Services for Westchester County. “Thank God we’re not expecting real strong winds. That’s a break.”

Richard Castro of the National Weather Service said winds would generally be in the range of 20 to 30 mph in the expected three-day rainstorm, not brisk enough to prompt a wind advisory. But he warned of the possibility of “a rotting tree, in supersaturated ground, that could come down even without winds that are extreme.”

Chris Olert, spokesman for giant utility Con Edison, said that so far, the company was not anticipating major damage, “But we’re always watchful, and we know that if the wind whips up, there’s a potential for downed trees.”

The rain meant trouble for sewage treatment plants, which often get overwhelmed during storms and have to discharge diluted but untreated human sewage into rivers and streams. Jim Tierney, an assistant commissioner in the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said Monday, “Today is a bad day.”

“Whatever is being put into the sewage system in many parts of the Northeast is blowing out into rivers and streams,” he said.

In most older urban areas, including most of New York City, stormwater and sewage run through the same pipes to the treatment plant, Tierney said. It results in water pollution, he said, but would take about $36 billion to fix.

Flooding was a concern as well, especially on Long Island beaches. On Monday, workers began trucking 200,000 cubic yards of sand to the east end beach at Robert Moses State Park to battle erosion. Every few minutes, a truck would dump a pile of sand and a bulldozer would spread it around.

State parks spokesman George Gorman said an additional 20,000 yards was moved Friday to Gilgo Beach to keep seawater from undermining Ocean Parkway, which was then just 60 feet from the swollen surf.

Jones Beach, one of the largest and most popular beaches in the area, was entirely submerged in the last storm and was still dotted with pools of water on Monday. Gorman said the coming rain and tides were likely to put the beach underwater again.

If that means there will still be pools of water as beach season approaches, “We’ll have to dig troughs with bulldozers to drain them, because otherwise they’ll become mosquito breeding grounds,” he said.

Sections of the Saw Mill, Bronx River and Taconic parkways were closed because of flooding in the northern suburbs.

In New York City, spokesman Chris Gilbride of the Office of Emergency Management said a flash flood emergency plan was activated Sunday. That sent workers from the city’s environmental, sanitation and transportation departments out to clear catch basins in flood-prone areas.

The city may be in the midst of its wettest March on record. Castro said that as of Monday morning, 7.81 inches of rain had fallen on Central Park. The record, set in 1983, is 10.54 inches, meaning it would take less than 3 inches to break the mark.

“That’s well within our forecast,” Castro said.