On the water main break on Webster Avenue

Thinking about infrastructure in the Bronx and New York City

Last Monday, December 16, a water main broke and flooded Webster Avenue, between E. 201st Street and East Moshulu Parkway South.

The 48-inch pipe broke around 7:30 p.m., flooding residential and commercial buildings. The roads were flooded and dark; residents were left without power and water, and cars were submerged. Videos from that night show water flowing down the street, higher than car tires. One woman was saved by a firefighter after she was caught in the water.

This break occurred three months after a gas main exploded on Bedford Park, which left over 500 people without power.

The following day, at noon, I walked down Bedford and Webster.

All anyone talked about, outside and inside shops, was the main water burst. All up and down the roads there were Con Edison, fire, and local news trucks. City and state officials talked to tenants and workers. The streets were no longer submerged when I walked, but mud was everywhere, and water flowed from hoses onto closed streets. One business had a collapsed wall, another a destroyed floor. Most shops I walked past had no electricity or gas.

On the Bronx gas explosion and New York City’s utility infrastructure

Community members congregated and recorded from their phones as police officers directed traffic away from closed-off streets and helicopters hovered above.

I talked to two workers outside my breakfast spot. They described how the pipe burst, adding that their workplace was not affected, but they had no power and did not know when it would be restored. Then, I stopped by the pharmacy and talked to some Dominican elders waiting for their medicine. They all excitedly recapped the evening’s incident. A worker described how some basement apartments, including her neighbor’s, flooded. Several community members required emergency relocation after the water main broke.

Officials do not know what caused last Monday’s break.

Community members blame the weather, pointing to the days of rain we’ve gotten here after months of drought. Others blamed the age of the pipe, with one person telling me it was built in 1890.

We are the most underfunded borough and must connect all the infrastructure incidents happening in the Bronx. It is essential to keep track of and understand what is causing pipes to break under and near our buildings and shops, especially as climate continues to change the city.

There is flooding happening worldwide—the Philippines, Chad, Vietnam, Guatemala, El Salvador, Brazil, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria, India, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea. Like much of the country and world, New York City was experiencing a drought, and then it began to rain. Flooding occurred, and the weather became hot, then cold, and then hot and cold again.

Last month, wildfires in the Bronx lasted for days, and even with closed windows, we could not breathe in our homes. From Bronx Times:

Between Oct. 29 and Nov. 12, the FDNY was dispatched to put out a record-breaking 229 brush fires, with 67 of those occurring in the Bronx, 56 in Queens, 51 in Brooklyn, 24 in Manhattan and 17 in Staten Island…The sharp rise in brush fires is unprecedented. In a typical October, the FDNY responds to around 200 brush fires—based on the past three years. This year, that number was exceeded in just two weeks.

Last month, there were power outages and heavy flooding on our train lines. Earlier this month, over 3,000 people were evacuated after power went out on one of the subway lines in Brooklyn following a manhole explosion.

The walls of our buildings are falling, yet our rent is going up. Our food is more expensive. Our bridges, trains, pipes, and roads are crumbling, yet our travel fares and utilities are more expensive. There is increasingly more surveillance in every element of our public lives.

I want Bronx Frontlines to continue to serve as a resource in helping our communities understand these issues and connect them to resistance all over our city, from Bronx gay and trans people fighting for housing rights to tenants fighting against landlords on Ward Avenue to Amazon and Starbucks workers striking to Haitian and Palestinian solidarity work.

As the conditions around our survival worsen, as systems become more violent, resistance continues.