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Brooklyn residents alongside the Gowanus Canal were staying put this Saturday despite an evacuation order from the City of New York. The Gowanus Canal is a federally registered Superfund cleanup site, considered lethally toxic to humans.

As New York Magazine reported earlier today: 

When Hurricane Irene hits the New York area on Sunday, the neighborhoods surrounding the Gowanus Canal are in for a literal shitstorm — and that may be the least of their problems.

The latest projections anticipate a storm surge of 7 to 15 feet in New York Harbor on Sunday. A dome of water would travel from Upper New York Bay, through Gowanus Harbor, and into the 1.5 mile-long Gowanus Canal near Smith and 9th St. Once in the canal, it could stir up a heady mix of pollutants — essentially oil, heavy metals, and human excrement — and distribute it throughout the slowly gentrifying area that sits among some of Brownstone Brooklyn’s priciest neighborhoods.

At this time no precautions seem to have been taken to ensure the safety of local residents.

This afternoon I posted a photoset showing the Union Street Bridge was still open to traffic, that minimal preparations had been made against flooding, and that residents weren’t going anywhere. In particular, I expressed concerned for the residents of the Gowanus Houses – a NYCHA housing project one block west of the canal – who were not evacuated. 

Though Mayor Mike Bloomberg explained in a press conference this afternoon that the city would be shutting off power and water to NYCHA properties in Zone A, and providing bus service to residents to help them relocate to shelters, no such buses were seen and residents seemed unaware as to any evacuation order or that their electricity and water was to be shut off. 

At my Twitter behest, the NY Times’s Michael Barbaro kindly asked Bloomberg about Gowanus in what became the last question of this evening’s mayoral press conference. Bloomberg wasn’t sure whether Gowanus was under evacuation order but said it was “hard to believe” and “unfair” to say that no one told residents of effected areas to evacuate.

By email NYC Councilmember Steve Levin, in whose district the Gowanus Canal resides, said, “Although they are on the border of the zones, the Gowanus Houses are in Zone B and were not under the mandatory evacuation order.” 

The Gowanus Houses are nevertheless directly across the street from Zone A, and again, only one block west of the canal.

Far left, the Gowanus Houses. Far right, at end of street, the Gowanus Canal. Picture via Google Street View.

“My office has been in contact with residents there and have impressed upon them that they should take all precautions necessary,” Levin said.

Levin’s remarks don’t account for the lack of a police presence in the area, alerting and assisting Zone A residents to evacuate, as was seen in more well-to-do areas, such as Battery Park City. There police used bullhorns to warn residents to leave and had MTA buses available to aid in evacuation. 

With the known presence of toxic waste in the water, Gowanus’ neglect is all the more troubling. One resident, squarely within Zone A, told me he “hadn’t heard a thing” about evacuation. “I’ve lived here since 1938,” he said, the year the New England hurricane caused New York’s last great flood. “I’ve seen it all. I’m not going anywhere.”

“My biggest concern with this storm is that we’ll have flooding problems around the Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek — also a Superfund site,” said Levin. “I have reached out to DEP, OEM and the Mayor’s Office to express my concerns about flooding around both Superfund sites.”

We’ll find out tomorrow if the city’s taking those concerns seriously.