Heavy winds and rain kept hundreds of migrant families from sleeping Monday morning and terrified their children at the sprawling tent encampment at Floyd Bennett Field. The ordeal set off a series of chaotic, early morning confrontations between staff and residents.
Members of two families told THE CITY they were kicked out of the shelter in the midst of the storm, left to make their way back to the Roosevelt Hotel in the rain and wind in the pre-dawn hours, with their children in tow, though city officials denied anyone was forced to leave.
While the tent shelters remained intact and no one was injured, the situation highlighted the dire conditions at the city’s remote family migrant shelter, where many of the 1,700 residents, including hundreds of children, are on edge.
THE CITY received a series of increasingly panicked WhatsApp calls beginning at 4 a.m. Monday morning.
“Everything’s shaking. They’re telling us to be calm, but the children are crying,” she said in Spanish. “You have to help us get out of here.”
Videos shared on WhatsApp showed the roof of the tents billowing in the winds, making loud hammering noises.
“It was such a thunderous sound it seemed like the beams were going to break. It seemed like the roof was going to fly off,” said Geraldine in Spanish, later describing the situation in a phone call with THE CITY. The mother of three from Venezuela asked her full name not be used fearing retaliation. “Not a single child slept.”
More videos showed a series of tense confrontations between droves of migrant families and staffers there, as the families asked to be evacuated while the staff tried to calm them down.
As videos from Floyd Bennett Field overnight started to swirl on social media, Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol, who is helping to oversee the shelter, released a video of his own, trying to allay concerns.
“These structures are incredibly, incredibly strong. They are designed to handle much more severe weather,” he said, standing in front of one of the tents Monday morning. “At no point in time were they in danger of collapsing or were people in danger out here.”
Evacuation plans were in place, Iscol added, but the conditions didn’t merit activating them.
“The safety of the people that are living out here is of paramount importance,” he said. “Nobody from the city thinks having families with children living out at Floyd Bennett Field is ideal. This is what was given to us by the state by the federal government. The team has done incredible work to make it work out here.”
Children Crying in Hysterics
But the commissioner’s words did little to placate terrified families staying at Floyd Bennett, who spent a night without sleep, some of whom couldn’t send their children to school Monday, with many more pleading to be transferred to a new shelter.
“The children were crying, in hysterics,” said a Venezuelan father of three in Spanish, who asked that his name be withheld for fear of retribution. “We’ve been up since 2 a.m. People were really nervous. Nothing serious happened, but people didn’t know that.”
While the tents remained for the most part dry inside, one family said their beds and sheets had gotten soaked. When they went to talk to staff about addressing the situation they were told instead that they could leave the shelter.
“They said they couldn’t do anything that we could leave,” said a Venezuelan mother named Emanuela said. She asked her last name be withheld, fearing retribution. “How can we sleep with a wet bed, you can’t.”
She said they felt they had no other choice but to leave Floyd Bennett on the bus in the pre-dawn hours, making their way back to the Roosevelt Hotel in the winds and rains, two children, one of whom was running a fever, in tow.
“It’s horrible,” she said in Spanish.
Another 29-year-old mother said her family too had been ejected from the shelter with her two children after her husband got in a scuffle with security guards.
“We had to leave at six in the morning, in the dark and the rain, with the children,” she said in Spanish, asking that her name not be used fearing further retaliation. “They wouldn’t let us stay.”
Kayla Mamelak, a spokesperson for the Mayor Eric Adams, denied that any family was forced to leave the shelter overnight.
Not Fit to Live In
The Floyd Bennett Field shelter opened for residents in November, the city’s first attempt at sheltering families with children in a “semi-congregate” setting. Four sprawling dormitory tents are subdivided with plastic walls about seven-feet high, providing families with some privacy. Up until recently, all migrant families with children were sent to individual hotel rooms.
At first the cold was the biggest shock for residents, THE CITY reported, who have to walk about half a mile across a blustery field to get to an adjacent bus stop on Flatbush Avenue. Shelter residents also have to leave heated tents and brave the elements to use the bathroom or go to the dining hall. Even inside the climate controlled tents, many said drafty cold patches and scant blankets made it difficult to keep their children warm at night.
In the weeks since many other issues have arisen, migrants told THE CITY. Kids are getting sick all the time coming down with colds, fevers, and coughs that never go away. Breakfasts and lunches are served cold with just four microwaves for thousands of residents to try to reheat them.
Getting their kids to school on time is also a daily challenge, with the designated buses leaving the shelters quickly filling up, and the Q35 bus, sometimes passing migrants by without stopping. They’re among the many reasons why advocates warned the city against sending families with children to the setting in the first place.
Monday’s storm added further fuel to the fire.
“We’re not looking for problems, but that place is not fit to live in,” said a Venezuelan mother of three in Spanish, who asked not to be named fearing retaliation. “It’s like a hell in there.”