That’s the only natural light we have
from the outside world.
It's like a sliver of light.
These basement apartments are illegal to rent out
because they are dangerous to live in.
Yet in a city that lacks affordable housing,
many immigrants are living underground.
This wasn’t our first flood.
This was like, wow, this was the sixth one.
When Hurricane Ida hit New York,
residents found themselves in death traps,
as basements quickly filled with water.
At least 13 people died in New York from the floods,
and most of them lived in basements like these.
Meanwhile, homeowners who rented out
their basements are blaming the record amount of rainfall
and city officials who ignored the climate crisis.
The amount of water that hit this block
forced that wall in completely.
It smashed it like it was nothing.
So it’s all Mother Nature.
This storm was very deadly and very dangerous.
Eugene and Myung-ae Kim are first-generation immigrants from Korea
who moved to a basement home in Queens just a few months before the flood.
It’s estimated there are tens of thousands of basement apartments in New York,
and Queens has become a hub
for immigrants looking for cheap housing.
The couple say they recently moved
because their dry cleaning business suffered during the pandemic.
There is a massive lack of affordable and public housing
available for low-income families in New York,
which means immigrants are often resorting to illegal spaces.
Eugene and Myung-ae escaped their apartment
before the water levels got too high.
But the couple lost most of their furniture
and photos that had been taken over decades.
They’re also mourning the loss
of their beloved cat, Nabi.
Windows that can’t be used as exits
and low ceilings are just a few of many reasons
why this basement is unsafe to live in.
While this couple has no choice but to stay in this basement, despite the risks,
another resident in Queens says
his basement home has become uninhabitable.
Hi!
Hey, how are you?
Rogue lived in a basement with his wife and 3-year-old son for six years.
Let me show you what’s going on actually.
So you could see visually the damage and stuff.
So that’s how high the water came up actually.
Outlets were covered.
- And it smells... - really bad, yeah.
I had the animals in here, and
a couple of them actually passed.
Rogue works as a magician and lost the majority of his magic equipment during the flood.
He says he received no help from government programs like FEMA
and had to set up a GoFundMe page.
The funds helped him rent another non-basement home.
But initially, he considered living in another basement.
We applied for, I think, two
or three other basements?
So you guys applied for basements again, even after this happened?
Yes, because it’s affordable.
And also, my credit’s not that good.
The family paid $1,550 for the basement home
and says their landlord never told him it was illegal to live there.
And he's always like, "Oh, if you don't like these kinds of situations, you should leave,"
every single time.
Besides the other floods, it was great.
I don’t know, I grew up in a basement.
I’m better now after like two weeks.
But, when it first happened, I was like devastated.
Just a short drive away in Hollis, Queens,
Phamatee and Khrishah Ramskriet, a mother and son from Trinidad,
drowned in the basement of this home.
Law enforcement is still investigating the incident,
but reports say they were gathering their belongings
when the wall of the basement burst and collapsed.
Amit Shivprasad’s family owns the home and was living upstairs.
He says his dad warned the family multiple times about the flood.
You know, I called 911 at least,
I could tell you at least 18 times or 20 times?
Amit’s neighborhood has previously experienced issues with flooding,
but he says he didn’t expect the waters to come in that high.
His family rented out their basement to a family they met working at a grocery store
who were looking for cheap housing around 15 years ago.
The homeowners that’s helping people and looking out and trying to do that,
I don’t think they should be demonized for that.
I just think we look at it as helping and fixing the housing issue that’s around in New York.
There is currently a vacate order on his home
because it’s being repaired from the flood damage.
The basement is an illegal apartment, according to the city's building department.
Yet Amit claims the basement was safe to live in.
So a lot of people would say that it’s the homeowner’s responsibility
to make the basements safe to live in, right?
What would you say to that?
Well, I can personally tell you, our basement is safe.
We have everything down there that’s considered safe.
I would live down there if I had to.
How do you know it’s safe?
It’s very safe because we have multiple exits,
everything is secured.
There’s things there, there is stuff there that's considered safe.
It's very safe.
I don't see a problem with it not being safe.
And yet, two people died, right?
So why do you think that was?
For you to understand what really happened, you physically had to be here
to see the wall, the way it went in.
The water, the amount of water that hit this block
forced that wall in completely.
The increasingly deadly floods hitting New York are a product of the climate crisis
that the city infrastructure wasn’t adequately prepared to withstand.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that the city will work
on a better warning system to alert
and evacuate residents.
This is the biggest wake-up call
we could possibly get.
We’re going to have to do a lot of things
differently — and quickly.
He’s also made a $2 billion commitment to improving the sewage system in Queens.
Yet residents we spoke to say city officials
need to work more closely with homeowners
to prepare for future floods.
The blaming game is over.
I want to talk to the mayor about a buyout solution
for homeowners who do not feel safe here anymore.
And a lot of them [don't].
Even with lives lost, residents feel the city is negligent towards the community.
I guarantee if our skin color was not what it is here,
everyone would have been out here trying to get this problem resolved.
As I told you, we’re a mixed immigrant community.
While it’s unclear how to immediately overcome the threats of the climate emergency
and a housing crisis, Eugene and Myung-ae sleep
fearfully, knowing that they’ll be the first target of the next natural disaster.