New York’s $95M flood plan builds an underground defence against extreme rain

Beneath parks, schoolyards, parking areas and other public spaces, New York is planning to create underground storage capable of holding stormwater before it overwhelms the sewer network. According to NYC Gov, the $95 million Homecrest project is part of a wider shift in how the city prepares for increasingly intense rainfall, using everyday public spaces as part of the drainage system rather than relying entirely on pipes and sewers.The project will cover roughly 350 acres around some of the neighbourhood’s most flood-prone streets and is designed for storms that can drop more than two inches of rain in an hour. Above ground, much may look unchanged. But during a sudden downpour, those familiar spaces could quietly become part of a hidden system designed to hold millions of gallons of water back from flooded streets and Coney Island Creek.New York’s Homecrest plan aims to capture stormwater before floodingThe plan centres on a simple change in how rainwater is handled. Instead of sending every drop towards the existing sewer network as quickly as possible, some of it will be caught locally and held underground.That matters during short, intense storms, when the volume arriving on ...