NYC region rejoices in rain, but it's not enough to change drought conditions

It is finally raining in New York City, but it's not quite enough to relieve the city's long-term drought.

The lack of rainfall in October and much of November has put the region way behind where it needs to be to fill up reservoirs and mitigate the ongoing threat of wildfires.

New York state Commissioner of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Jackie Bray joined WNYC’s Sean Carlson on "All Things Considered" this week to discuss the ongoing drought, strategies to stay safe and conserve water and the state’s plans going forward.

The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Sean Carlson: Commissioner Bray, New York City has not issued a drought warning in more than 20 years. Can you just explain to us how unique of a situation this is and why it is happening?

Jackie Bray: The last time we saw New York City at a drought warning was 2002. We don't have another October where we've had less precipitation. So it's an incredibly unusual situation. It's raining today, but the rain through [Thursday and Friday] is certainly not enough to make up for how much rain we haven't had this fall.

How much rain do we need to get out of the drought warning?

We are below what we normally have by between 6 and 9 inches and so that means that not only do we need to get what we would normally get for this week in November — and what we would normally get in December — but we need 6 to 9 inches more than that in order to get out of the drought warning and out of the drought in general.

It's not only the city, right? We've got a severe drought going on in the Hudson Valley as well, and probably even more acutely in the Hudson Valley at this point. So we're doing a couple things. You know, the first thing that we're doing is that the Department of Health is working with water suppliers to make sure that they have all of the information that they need and that they're able to meter and control the water usage in their area.

The second thing that we're doing is we're literally checking our stockpiles twice, making sure that in the event that there was a greater emergency, we were ready to go deploying the type of things like new pumps, different pumps, big water tankers that one might need. We're not there yet, but that's an important thing for us to do to get ready. And finally, just like the city is doing, we are advising our agencies to reduce water usage. You know, we heard on Monday, the MTA is going to suspend some cleaning of their subway cars. We're doing stuff like that all over the region.

The next level after a drought warning is a drought emergency. That would come with mandatory water restrictions. What would it take for the city to get to that level?

There's four different types of factors that the state and the city used to make that determination. Number one, the amount of precipitation. Number two, the level of the reservoirs. Number three, how much groundwater there is. And number four, how the streams are flowing.

But in order to just stay in the drought warning and not go to a drought emergency, we need a rain like today again, sometime in the next couple of weeks. And then, you know, at least every couple of weeks after that, the reservoirs right now are at about 60%. They're usually at about 79%. If they got below 50%, that's when we would start really seriously thinking about a drought emergency.

The good news is that we had a really wet summer, and so groundwater is helping us in a big way here. Public officials have been urging residents to conserve water by doing things like turning off the faucet while you brush your teeth.

Mayor Eric Adams has also banned open flames or fireworks. What do you think the most important thing New Yorkers can do right now?

I think for regular New Yorkers, the most important thing is all of the fire risk stuff. We want to be really careful with that.

The governor issued a statewide burn ban about 10 days ago. Folks need to listen to that. You don't want to be outside, frankly, lighting any fires, even if it's, you know, a small campfire. If you're going to have a campfire, have a way to put it out. I also want to say we're coming up on Thanksgiving. Think twice about frying that turkey. Certainly if you're going to fry it, you got to fry it outdoors. It is absolutely too dangerous to fry it indoors. But if you're frying your turkey outdoors, there is a non-zero chance that there are flames coming off of that situation. And in an environment like this, It's really easy for your lawn to catch fire, for that to cause brush fires in and around your area.

Check any pipes that are leaking and fix those things. Just as regular New Yorkers, we need to do that in large buildings and small buildings and industrial buildings and in our private residences. If there's a fire hydrant that is not capped, we need to report that right away. We need to stop washing our cars. We need to stop using water that isn't absolutely essential at this point.

Droughts are more likely to happen these days because of climate change. And drought conditions aren't just happening here in the Northeast, but across most of the country. What can the state do to prepare for climate change and mitigate droughts that we may see in the future?

A handful of things that we're already doing, right? Number one, we have to make sure that our infrastructure is as resilient as possible. And it's not just about the bridges. It's not just about seawalls, right?

It's also about, are our buildings as efficient as possible? Are we using water as efficiently as possible? Are we heating and cooling our buildings as efficiently as possible? The city was trying very hard to do the repairs that they needed under the Hudson River for the Delaware Aqueduct. They obviously have to suspend that this year, but that's the type of work that we have to do to make sure that we can pull water resources from as many places as we need it for our downstate customers and for the city. Things like investing in how we understand weather information. This governor started what we call “NYS Work” — which is the New York State Weather Risk Communication Center.

It's an entire team of people whose job is to not just know what the weather is, but to help us learn how to better communicate it to New Yorkers so that we're all staying ahead of where we need to be. That's the type of stuff that we all have to be doing at every level of government.