As the fallout of Hurricane Ida comes into focus in both the Gulf Coast region and the Atlantic Northeast, one area of chronic concern has become ground zero for planning gaps that are increasingly deadly indicators of race and class in cities that number among the most expensive in the world.

The Hollis section of Queens in New York City, where 13 people were tragically killed in the flooding that gripped the city over the night on Wednesday as the unexpectedly intense storm bore down on the region, was particularly hard-hit relative to other neighborhoods in the borough of nearly 2.5 million. 

Two people died in the basement of their 183rd Street apartment as storm waters collapsed walls and deluged buildings around Hollis. The neighborhood is prone to flooding and has been the subject of a multibillion-dollar sewage system upgrade that began in 2019 and is still undergoing construction, according to Mayor de Blasio.

Photos:183 Street was devastated by flooding last night. A mother and son were killed by flooding caused by Hurricane IDA. Firefighters had to put divers in basement. #LloydMitchellPhotography #Queens #localjournalism #AMNewYork #Photojournalism #HurricaneIda #FDNY pic.twitter.com/GA6O8XxXD1
— Lloyd Mitchell (@Lloydphoto) September 2, 2021

The failure of that system was exacerbated by the preponderance of quasi-legal basement apartment units in Brooklyn and Queens. 11 of the 13 New Yorkers killed in the city lived in those style apartments, a fact that has enraged housing advocates who have been calling for their legalization for many years. 

Severe flash flooding in Rego Park queens pic.twitter.com/lUTPFPRDsz
— Andi Yagudayev (@StormchaserNYC) September 2, 2021

The city government has been very inconsistent in addressing their concerns and was only recently invested in a pilot program that would have converted some of the dwellings into legal units before cutting the program almost entirely as part of last year’s COVID-induced budget crunch. Legalization could enact zoning standards like added exits and increased ceiling heights that would ensure resident safety in the more than 300,000 units estimated to fall under the auspices of the measure. 

To date, there is no viable workaround that can feasibly be enacted in time for New York’s next natural disaster. Tenants who live in such apartments face a guaranteed eviction if they report any misgivings to the city’s Housing Preservation and Development department. HPD is very much aware of its dilemma, though it still chooses to take a safety angle as its primary means for denying special exemptions or eviction moratoriums to those that currently reside in basement dwellings across the city. 

“I believe that if our legislation was the law, many of those units could have been legalized, and we could have prevented the loss of life,” Harvey Epstein, a Manhattan state rep who authored a bill earlier this year in the state’s assembly that would speed the legalization process, told THE CITY online newspaper.

More than 500,000 people live in Southeast Queens. A map of vulnerable flood areas around New York City can be found here.