ST. GEORGE — An environmental group is seeking pictures of deluged North Shore streets for a study aimed at making the area more flood resistant.
The North Shore Waterfront Conservancy (NSWC) launched a study called "Shore Up" that uses a grant from the state's Department of Environmental Conservation to look at the effects of climate change in the neighborhood.
The group is asking residents to snap photos of places that are common flood spots, not only during Hurricane Sandy but also on any rainy day, said Beryl Thurman, president of the NSWC.
"These are flooding spots that are really apparent and have been going on for years," Thurman said.
"During inclement weather, we're asking if they know either their home, their street or their neighborhood have flooding issues, to take photos of it and send them into us so that we can then catalog them and put them into our projects."
Thurman sent out emails and messages online asking residents to snap the photos and submit them to the group's Facebook page during the five month period of the study. She said the group will also be monitoring the streets themselves and take other steps to study the area, including boat tours around the coast to check for berms and protection.
Using the data, Thurman said they want to create a Geographical Information Systems map, a report and a documentary in easy to understand formats to hand off to city and state agencies.
In rainstorms, many streets in Port Richmond flood heavily. Water often jumps the curb and goes into people's basements on streets like Forest Avenue and Richmond Terrace constantly flood, Thurman said.
"You can do whitewater rafting on it," she said about Forest Avenue.
While other neighborhoods in the borough already have plans or measures put in place to protect against future storms, the North Shore has largely been left out of the conversation, Thurman said.
"There's no documentation, there's no history," she said.
A big reason data doesn't exist is because residents' complaints to 311 were not logged, Thurman said.
"The other areas of Staten Island are way ahead of us in terms of reporting flooding issues," she said. "If you went down to many of the basements of the North Shore you would find people with stuff in plastic containers because they're accustomed to having seepage."
Elected officials like Borough President James Oddo expressed interest in seeing the study.
"We have areas that we know are vulnerable and we're not doing anything better," Thurman said. "That would be foolish not to do something about."
