New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks admitted Tuesday that administration officials misused the term “shelter in place” last week when informing the public how to protect themselves during a storm that paralyzed major parts of the city, including roads and the subway.
Banks’ comments marked the first time a high-ranking public official acknowledged missteps in the city’s handling of the storm.
“We should have had stronger communication on that,” he said in response to a reporter’s question at a news conference with Mayor Eric Adams at City Hall.
“All of our kids were safe,” he added. “We had no issues with any of our kids. But I think this incident does suggest to us that we needed to have a clearer level of communication all the way through.”
Adams has been heavily criticized for his handling of the severe weather event – forecast days in advance – with many saying his administration failed to provide sufficient warnings about the impending rainfall.
As Friday’s flash floods engulfed major swaths of Brooklyn and Queens, the mayor and emergency management officials told people who were at work or in school to “shelter in place,” but did not elaborate on exactly what that meant. Parents who had slogged through wet and difficult commutes to bring their children to school were left wondering how they would pick them up amid rolling road closures and subway shutdowns.
Among the critical questions was whether the mayor should have closed schools before the storm hit the city. During multiple interviews on Friday afternoon, Adams staunchly defended his administration’s response, including the decision to keep schools open.
But following Banks’ remarks on Tuesday, Adams appeared to acknowledge that certain city functions could have been improved, saying city agencies perform a post-mortem review after every major incident.
“We sit down and say, ‘Hey, what could we have done better? How do we do it better?’” Adams noted. “And we…
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