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Tropical Cyclone Ida Recovery in New York CityTurning fragmented information into a defensible case for federal investment.
In partnership with NYC Emergency Management, we led the analysis and authored an extensive report on the community impact of Tropical Cyclone Ida — the most severe rain event in New York City's recorded history. Housing damage, infrastructure strain, and neighborhood-level vulnerability were fragmented across agency systems, in formats that didn't speak to one another, and at scales that didn't match how recovery decisions get made. The work was to bring that information together and translate it to the levels where local officials and individual agencies could act on it — building-by-building, neighborhood-by-neighborhood, and against each department's remit.
In disaster recovery, the issue is rarely how much data exists. It's whether the data can move from silo to decision at the scale where the work actually happens. The analysis supported the case for federal investment, with more than $310M in recovery funding directed to the communities most affected.
