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KaiDaiz t1_iqp5vvh wrote

Reply to comment by Kerfuckle in Hurricane Ida - NYC Lawsuit by LadyofLorien_

1907 legal decision that does not hold municipal governments responsible for damage due to “extraordinary or excessive” rainfall, according to the letter from Lander.

Basically saying they not responsible for acts of god and in event of a working sewer that overflow beyond the amount of flow it was spec for.

if the sewer was broken and fail to do job you have a case. if sewer was overwhelm but fully function as design, no case

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edman007 t1_iqpfrql wrote

Yup, and I strongly believe they are interpreting it wrong.

If you build a house on a flood plain that regularly sees floods of 5ft and your house gets flooded from a storm that's your own problem, that's basically what the state law is. It's not the states problem you ensure your house doesn't flood.

However if you build your house on that flood plain 6 feet into the air so that regular floods don't cause property damage you might think you're fine. But what happens when the city builds a levy and traps your inside to protect your neighbor? Now regular floods at your house at 10 feet because the state changed the drainage resulting in higher flood waters for you.

That's really the crux of the issue. The state isn't responsible for making sure your house doesn't flood, but they should be responsible to allowing projects to go through that cause floods to be much more severe to the point that it overpowers the flood protections you have that would have been sufficient had the state not screwed it up.

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