REMARKS
Council Member Sanchez discusses fire safety and Intro 89-A for improved notifications
0:37:18
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128 sec
Council Member Pierina Ana Sanchez speaks about the impact of fires on families and the need for better support systems in New York City.
She introduces Intro 89-A, which would require FDNY to notify council members and other officials about fires in their districts within 3 hours of initial response.
- Sanchez describes the traumatic experience of being displaced by a fire, which happens over 2,000 times per year in NYC.
- She acknowledges existing support systems but argues that improvements are needed.
- Intro 89-A aims to create redundant infrastructure to catch mistakes and fill gaps left by agencies in supporting fire victims.
Pierina Ana Sanchez
0:37:18
Thank you, madam, majority leader, Displacement following a fire or structural emergency in your home is one of the most disruptive experiences a family can have.
0:37:27
Imagine running for your life, barely remembering to grab shoes, probably insufficient clothing, and certainly not identifying information.
0:37:35
In your wallet.
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Only to stand or sit on your sidewalk for hours, looking up, not being sure what is next.
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This happens over two thousand times per year across the city of New York.
0:37:47
In New York City, We thankfully have some processes designed to help New Yorkers through these destabilizing times, gratitude first to our first responders who risked their lives to pull us out of fires and emergency conditions.
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The American Red Cross per contract with HPD, who visits fire and other emergency sites to help residents with emergency shelter and provisions in certain circumstances.
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And our agencies from emergency management to buildings to housing preservation and FDNY again who each have different roles to ensure buildings are safe and that there is some degree of interagency coordination.
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Yet for all that New Yorkers have, we can and must do better.
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On dozens of occasions, my office, me, myself, have visited firesites.
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We all have, as colleagues, discovering issues.
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Buildings or HPD didn't issue a vacate order where they should have an apartment being walled in with no windows in the middle of winter as an example.
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American Red Cross not being notified.
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And residents left in limbo.
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And that brings me to intro 89.
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Intro 89 would provide council members and other key public officials, including community boards, with notifications when fire occur a fire occurs in their district.
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Within 3 hours of FDNY's initial response.
0:39:00
This is important because we're creating infrastructure to stabilize New Yorkers and their families after a fire event that is redundant and that gives us the opportunity to catch any mistakes or any gaps that were left behind by agencies.
0:39:13
This is personal for me as my own family was displaced in a fire when I was just three years old.
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Left with nowhere to go and no one to turn to except for the flames of what had been our home.
0:39:24
I hope you join me in voting.
0:39:25
I thank you.