Do I Need To Deal With This?

It is about to rain again…and after yesterdays storm I saw a lady who answered “YES” to the question….“Do I Need To Deal With This?”

It was a city sewer grate on the corner, and she was out there using her feet to clear muck off the drain and create a place for the water to go.

Whatever her reason, she is not just complaining. She is doing something!

Meanwhile, I see similar questions popping up on Next Door:

What can you do?

1) Let the city know about it, they do want to know.

• Log the issue via 311 portal here: https://portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-01084 or call 311.

• They will want to know specific street address, your contact info, and they allow for pictures (up to 3) file cannot be larger than 75MB so do pics vs videos.

• The city tries to keep up and clean/maintain 150,000 catch basins a year (it’s a lot), especially when you think about how much trash and leaves are dropped on our streets.

• The number of 311 catch basin service requests is….well, I tried to get that but when searching for NYC Open Data there was 37M rows of data representing 311 complaints between now and 2010…. and I just can’t open that file right now. But I can tell you it is NOT more than 37M, and there are 5,974 types of requests that 311 gets (real data).

2) Clear it.

It is probably not what you planned to do today….but if you see it and can clean it - or at least clear the debris away from top to somewhere out of the way of the water - 8.3 million New Yorkers would appreciate it.

Tips:

• Use your feet where you have more protection (unless you walk around barefoot).

• Don’t use barehands as there maybe sharp stuff in there. Use gloves if you have, a shovel or a rake is even better.

• If you cannot put it in a bag or bin, try to get it away from the water path without blocking sidewalk.

• WATCH FOR TRAFFIC….c’mon, you are a New Yorker and should know this already.

3) If you need INSPIRATION (“that guy is a hero”)

Your water is our water! Thank you NYC.

If you read to the bottom, we are doing good. Please share with others.