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Q&A
Flood sensor deployment and flood monitoring technologies
2:50:04
ยท
139 sec
Commissioner Aggarwala provides an update on the city's flood sensor deployment and monitoring technologies, highlighting progress and new initiatives.
- Flood Net system with optical sensors on track to reach 500 installations ahead of schedule
- 242 Flood Net sensors already installed, nearly halfway to the goal
- New initiative to use existing traffic cameras with computer vision for flood level monitoring
- Additional $500,000 in FY26 budget for utilizing live traffic feeds for water level assessments
- Strategy of using multiple approaches (purpose-built sensors and repurposed cameras) for system robustness
Lincoln Restler
2:50:04
Okay.
2:50:05
That is helpful.
2:50:06
I I think relatedly just wanna understand the flood sensors.
2:50:14
I know there the preliminary plan included an additional $500,000 in f y twenty six and and a little bit more in the out years.
2:50:24
This will help DEP utilize existing live traffic feeds for assessing water levels projections.
2:50:30
The goal in rainfall ready the goal in the rainfall ready report was 500, I believe, of these by f y twenty six by the end of twenty twenty six.
2:50:38
Excuse me.
2:50:38
Not f y twenty six.
2:50:39
Is that right?
2:50:40
Is that the right goal?
2:50:41
Is that are we on pace to achieve it?
Rohit Aggarwala
2:50:43
Well, let me so there are two complementary things.
2:50:47
So what was launched in the in the aftermath of of hurricane Ida in the new normal report was the flood net system.
2:50:56
And that is optical sensors that point down.
2:50:59
They're purpose built.
2:51:01
And that's where we are on track to do 500.
2:51:03
The original plan was it would take until 2027 or 2028 to achieve all 500.
2:51:09
We are on track to finish the installation next year.
2:51:12
We are of schedule and have done a lot of work with our partners to deploy flood nets.
2:51:17
I think we are at 200 already.
2:51:19
So we do have two forty two.
2:51:21
Thank you, Tassos.
2:51:22
We have 242 already installed.
2:51:24
So we're just about halfway.
2:51:27
And that gives us the beginnings of a comprehensive monitoring system.
2:51:32
The additional money will actually allow us to complement the flood net technology with an effort to use existing traffic cameras to train them using computer vision to to understand flooding levels.
2:51:48
So it's a very different approach to getting the same information.
2:51:51
It's just a good thing in systems design to to bet on multiple approaches to solving the same problem because we we don't know how long the flood net sensors will last.
2:52:01
We don't know how accurate optical the traffic camera work might be.
2:52:05
So by doing multiple things at once, we make ourselves more robust.
2:52:09
Did you wanna add something?
2:52:10
Great.
Lincoln Restler
2:52:13
I'd like to to do I'm gonna try to wrap up because it's been a few hours, and I imagine people need to go to the bathroom.
Rohit Aggarwala
2:52:22
Or order that pizza.