A polar vortex that swept through the Northeast this past weekend led to a two-day spell of single-digit temperatures that sent an icy chill throughout New York City and tested the limits of its aging public housing infrastructure.
In the winter prior, residents of NYCHA’s Fort Independence Houses, located in Kingsbridge Heights at 3340 Bailey Ave., noted a lack of heat left many of the building’s children and the elderly in inhumane conditions beginning in October 2021. And not much has changed more than a year later.
After temperatures reached as low as 4 degrees on a Saturday, Feb. 4, 19-year-old Emily Ayala sprang into action at around 3 a.m. early Sunday morning when a leak caused by a boiler — that was flagged as defective by the NYC Department of Buildings on Jan. 29 — emitted a flood of water and heat vapor into her third-floor apartment, leading her and her younger sister to vacate their apartment in the middle of the night.
Ayala, along with her sister, trudged through scalding hot water and an odorous gas and fog before her mother and FDNY officials arrived minutes later. Ayala suffered minor bruising to her ankle, but is glad that the worst outcome — not uncommon in a historically neglected public housing unit — was avoided.
The family was able to return to their home on Monday and interrupted heat service was restored before Tuesday morning.
“In the winters, it’s kind of weird sometimes. We get heat and sometimes we don’t, and usually when we don’t get heat, it is freezing in here. probably colder in here than outside,” Ayala told the Bronx Times. “I’ve lived here since I was nine. I still have most of my ceiling missing so if it’s not one thing that needs a repair, it’s another thing.”
According to a NYCHA spokesperson, the leak in a third-floor apartment came from a ruptured heating line in the apartment’s baseboard causing the line to freeze due to the weekend’s icy temperatures.
When asked by the Bronx Times…
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