The fallout from last week’s record-breaking rainstorm in New York City is shining a light on local climate mitigation efforts and water infrastructure as the increased threat from flooding becomes a major issue for Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and key city agencies.

A total of seven inches of rain fell throughout the New York metropolitan region in 24 hours Friday, inflicting particular damage to areas built over or adjacent to wetlands and other bodies of water as it overwhelmed the mass transit system and many roadways in every borough.

Beyond the torrent of viral storm footage that spread across social media, Friday’s storm provided a look at the precariousness of different resiliency projects aimed at combatting climate change, including the new Cloudburst Management plan, sewer system upgrades, and greening campaigns. Experts warn this effort could be too disjointed and expensive to make a difference before so-called "once in a hundred year" storms become regular occurrences.

"This is at least a 10-year, if not a 20-year effort, to retrofit the city to increase its ability to absorb a lot more water. And it’s also anywhere between a $100 to $200 billion sewer system upgrade project," the director of the New School’s Urban Systems Lab, Timon McPhearson, told Vox after the storm. "Nobody knows where that money’s going to come from. Even with all the Inflation Reduction Act spending, there’s just no real source of the kinds of funding that would be required to make those kinds of upgrades; we’re only going to get that money from federal sources."

"We are taking action to protect our city and prevent future tragedies," Adams promised the city a year removed from the devastating impact of Hurricane Ida in 2021. Progress on these fronts is simply "plodding," according to a report released by the City Comptroller just six months prior. Many of the state and federal dollars that have gone to the city since Hurricane Sandy have been put into coastal flood barriers and storm surge protection, which does nothing against heavy rainfall events such as Ida and last week's storm. 

Some have called for a Copenhagen-type model of sponge-like retention sites along with relatively simple fixes like the raising of sidewalks to be rapidly implemented, though the limitations of the public domain versus privately-owned developments add yet another layer to the challenge of financing, manpower, and time.

"We are not fixing things at the pace our climate is changing and that’s going to continue to be a challenge every time we get one of these rain storms or hurricanes," Louise Yeung, the Comptroller’s chief climate officer, said in an interview to NBC this weekend. 

An overview of flood protection strategies put forth by the city in November 2021 can be found here.