THERE ARE A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN NEW YORK City but drowning in a rainstorm is not something many New Yorkers have ever worried about.
That changed last September when the remnants of Hurricane Ida hit the Big Apple, unleashing 80-mile-an-hour winds and dumping three-and-a-half inches of rain in a single hour, almost twice as much water as the city’s antiquated sewer systems could handle. The flood warning came too late to save a Nepali couple and their 2-year-old son, who drowned in Woodside, Queens when the sewers overflowed and water roared down hill, inundating their cramped, illegal basement apartment. It did not help a 43-year-old mother and her 22-year-old son, who died in Jamaica, Queens when floodwaters sent a car barreling into the side of their building, causing…