Transcript: Mayor de Blasio, Commissioner Scrivani Hold Media Availability to Discuss the Heat Advisory

June 30, 2021

Video available at: https://youtu.be/SqfON6_tKT0

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good afternoon, everyone. I wanted to urgently, urgently tell all New Yorkers we're now experiencing a heat emergency and we need people to take immediate action. I just got off the phone with Matt Ketschke, the President of Con Edison of New York. Our electric system is dealing with real strains right now because of the severity of heat that we are experiencing today. And, obviously, after four days in a row of intense heat, we have a recorded temperature at LaGuardia airport of 98 degrees – that has set a record for this day. We have a real challenge on our hands. So, here's the message to all New Yorkers – immediately, immediately reduce the use of electricity in your home or in your business. This is very serious stuff. We need to ensure that our electric supply is protected. We need to avoid any possible disruptions. We've all experienced that and know how problematic it can be, what a problem for all of us can be if electricity is disrupted in any way. This is a chance for all New Yorkers to do something about it.

So, specifically, from this point on through the afternoon, through the entire evening, and until you wake up in the morning, we're asking people to reduce the use of air conditioning, turn it off if you can turn it off, but certainly bring it down – I mean, let me be clear, less air conditioning, set it at a higher temperature if you need the air conditioning. We're asking people to avoid any of the things that use a lot of electricity, appliances that are particularly electricity-intense like washers and dryers, microwaves. The important thing to realize is we're at the end of this heat wave, but it really has added up. We're very hopeful the heat will break in the early morning hours tomorrow, but we've got to get to that point safely. So, we need everyone to turn things down, turn things off immediately, don't have lights on if you don't need them. Again, this message goes to folks about their homes and their businesses, and it is an urgent message.

When you wake up in the morning, as of now, we expect things to be much more normal and you can go about your normal activities. But we need people to take steps right now to protect against any outages. I'm going to turn to Commissioner John Scrivani, our Emergency Management Commissioner. He's going to give you an update. We do have some very localized outages already that he'll tell you about. We want to make sure that nothing worse than that happens. So, I want to turn now to Emergency Management Commissioner John Scrivani.

Commissioner John Scrivani, Emergency Management: Thank you, sir. So, the first major outage that we're dealing with is in Brooklyn, in the Williamsburg section. There are about 1,700 customers without power. Con Edison and the Emergency Management team are out there assisting the neighborhood. Con Edison is distributing dry ice at the corner of Nassau Avenue and Morgan Avenue, and we also have brought an MTA bus out there to serve as a mobile cooling center, which is parked at the same location. So, if you do need any assistance from either Con Ed with dry ice to keep your food cold in the house, or if you do need to just get out and sit in some place cold for a few minutes, you can get out and sit in the MTA bus, and thank you to the MTA for that support.

There are some other localized outages in each borough, but there are none as significant as the one in Williamsburg. And with the Mayor's message, we're hoping that with the conservation of energy that we will not be dealing with any more significant outages. I do want to echo the messages that we have put forward in the last few days, mainly around safety. We do want you to remember if you have to be outside to hydrate, but please stay indoors if you can. Try not to overexert yourself if you are outside, especially in the middle of the day. And please, check on your neighbors. If you have elderly neighbors or people that are at risk, we do want you to get out there and check on them. Also, remember, the City pools are open. The parks with water features are open and the beaches are open. So, if you do want to cool off, you can get to those locations as well. Thank you, sir.

Mayor: Thank you, Commissioner. And everyone, just to conclude this – anyone who needs information about those cooling centers or places you can go, you can call 3-1-1, or you can go to nyc.gov/beattheheat. But the most important message now is, we do not want to see things go from bad to worse. We've already seen some localized power outages. We do not want to see it get worse. This is really big strain that's being placed on all electric system by this level of heat for this many days. We all need to act now, so I'm asking every New Yorker to be a part of this. Turn off anything you don't need to be on right now. Any electricity that you can turn off, turn off. Put your air conditioning at a warmer temperature. It may not be as comfortable, but it's going to help us avoid a power outage. Don't use appliances you don't need to. Look, anything you can put off to tomorrow – here's a way to think about it, if you can wait until tomorrow to use certain appliances, wait. Just really be conscientious, because this is what we have to do for each other to get through this to make sure we do not have an outage, especially do not want to see a power outage in the middle of this kind of heat.

So, everyone, let's join together to do that. And that's how we protect each other as we go through this challenge. A couple of members of the media have questions. I'm keeping the questions right now just to this heat emergency. So, please, if you're members of the media, feel free to ask about that. Let's go ahead.

Moderator: The first question today goes to Nolan from the Post.

Question: Good afternoon, everybody. How are you?

Mayor: We are trying to beat the heat here, Nolan. How are you doing?

Question: I’m all right, Mr. Mayor. In terms of cooling centers, there were complaints earlier this week that there weren't sufficient centers in Queens. Has the City taken any steps to open more cooling centers there?

Mayor: I’ll start and I'll turn it to the Commissioner. Nolan, very important question. We are adding centers literally day by day. We have a number of facilities that are coming back online from COVID, including some of the library branches, some of the senior centers. That's going to be really helpful. Some of them are not open till next week. So, the numbers are going to keep growing week by week. But we have a substantial number of cooling centers and we have literally been adding over the last few days. Commissioner, do you want to give an update?

Commissioner Scrivani: Yes, sir. Yeah, we've been working closely with the community leaders and the City agencies to open as many centers as we can. Also have to remember that we gave out 74,000 air conditioners last year, so the demand for the cooling centers is down. We're not seeing as many people coming in to them. So, we feel at this time we have sufficient capacity if anybody needs to get into a cooling center. And again, we are working diligently throughout the season to try and open as many as possible.

Mayor: Thank you. Go ahead, Nolan. Do you have a follow-up?

Question: Yeah, I do. You said that – I guess you guys had gotten a briefing from Con Ed that says that the grid is getting pushed to its limit. Do you have any idea as to what the demand on the grid is right now and how close we are to raking it?

Mayor: I talked to, as I said, a few moments ago, to the President of Con Ed New York. I think the situation has gotten tougher in the course of the day. In the first half of the day, Nolan, Con Ed thought the situation was just a localized challenge in a few neighborhoods. In the last couple hours, they've come to the conclusion it's a bigger challenge just because of the intensity of the heat and, again, the cumulative impact of four days in a row, which is not typical. So, they certainly have redundancy still and their equipment is holding well, that's the basic report we've gotten from Con Ed. But we need people to take action now, we do not want to press the limits of the system. This is where we need to see a reduction in demand quickly to make sure that we do not run any risks here.

Moderator: Next is Chloe from WNYC.

Question: Hi. So, I guess the question is about our power grid system and whether or not it's strong enough to sustain the rest of the summer, especially since more folks are continuing to work from home.

Mayor: It's a very good question, Chloe. And I think we're seeing around the country challenges like we've never seen before in terms of heat. We do have a stronger system here in New York City and this part of the country than many others. But what is different now, to your question, is we are not used to seeing many days in a row of unbroken heat and it's something we have to keep addressing. One of the things that we can do is – when we see the problem develop, is giving people the warning to start changing how much they're using electricity. It really makes an impact. It's astounding. We saw this a few times in the last few years, when people hear the message and they alter their behavior it averts the problem – that's a big piece of it. But I think your question is, what does the future bring and what can we do more structurally? These are issues we're working on now and I think what we're going through today is another reminder that we're going to need even more redundancy going forward to be safe.

Go ahead, Chloe.

Question: I’m all done, thank you.

Mayor: Thank you. Anybody else?

Moderator: Those are all the questions we have for today.

Mayor: All right, everybody, again, if you have any questions, particularly about cooling centers or anything that you need, you can call 3-1-1, or go to nyc.gov/beattheheat. But the bottom line is, let's all work together right now – right, right now. Use less electricity, starting right this moment. And let's make sure we get through today well. And, again, starting tomorrow morning, you can go back to normal electricity use. Let's do this together. Thank you, everyone.

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