On the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, the MTA said Sunday it is creating a new division to tackle weather issues, while the city repeated its pledge to give the hard-hit Rockaways $145 million for projects to better protect the area from coastal storms.
The transit agency said its new “reorganization consolidates different groups that were doing similar work’’ and that team director Iain Watt will coordinate its response to storms, blackouts and heat waves.
The move “is an example of [MTA] Chairman [Joe] Lhota’s charge to break down silos and improve efficiency,” said agency spokesman Shams Tarek.
Meanwhile, Mayor de Blasio touted new federal- and city-funded projects for the Rockaways at a press conference to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Sandy.
The new work in the Rockaways — which would include ball fields and bathrooms at Bayswater Park, a raised shoreline around the Edgemere neighborhood and a new waterfront park at Beach 88th Street — was all announced previously.
“It’s impossible to forget what happened,” the mayor said.
“It’s impossible to let down our guard because we learned this is a fight we’ll be fighting for a long time to make our city safe, to make it resilient.”
The improvements will be funded primarily through the federal government with additional money coming from the city and the administration of Queens Borough President Melinda Katz.
On Long Island, Gov. Cuomo and Sen. Charles Schumer announced a $354 million project to improve water quality of the Western Bays by diverting sewage to an abandoned aqueduct away from the shallow ecosystem and three miles into the Atlantic Ocean.
In the aftermath of Sandy, the state announced it would pour $810 million into the area to rebuild water treatment facilities that were damaged by the storm.
“This project will permanently remove tens of billions of gallons of sewage from the Western Bays, restoring our natural barriers to extreme weather,” Cuomo said.