Matt Doxsey has lived in the same Hamilton Beach house all his life — although now it’s rebuilt and elevated, as part of the post-Hurricane Sandy Build It Back program.
The rebuild of his Queens home included the installation of an electric platform lift device on the exterior to make the raised two-story home accessible.
But flooding complicates that when the water gets into the lift’s machinery and breaks it.
Doxsey, 62, has severe COPD, a long-term lung disease that causes him to struggle to climb over a dozen steps to get inside.
“I’m fortunate that my home is raised, but that’s a problem in itself now because of the lift,” Doxsey said regarding his now nonfunctional mini-elevator.
Elevating houses has been a go-to method to protect people’s residences against flooding in coastal areas, relying on lifts to help people with mobility issues get in and out of their raised homes. But occupants of those houses are left in a lurch when their lifts no longer work.
Flooding happens often in Doxsey’s southern Queens neighborhood on Jamaica Bay, just across from John F. Kennedy Airport. On Saturday, floodwaters rose over two feet in Doxsey’s yard as a result of a combined high tide and coastal storm, according to FloodNet data.
Doxsey’s broken lift means it’s difficult for him to leave the house. The retired postal worker said he’s had the unit serviced at least six times in three years, spending around $4,000, he estimated. His insurance has a $1,000 deductible, and he said he doesn’t have the money to call for a repair at the moment.
With climate change causing higher sea levels and more extreme rain events, coastal neighborhoods like Doxsey’s can expect more frequent and more severe flooding from high tides and coastal storms.
Waiting and Waiting
Doxley acknowledged he’s lucky he can manage the stairs if he must. He’s not the only one dealing with a broken lift caused by flooding.
Chung Lee, a manager at Alpha Care Supply, a Long Island company that repairs the lifts, said he often gets service calls after stormy weather, especially in coastal, flood-prone Queens neighborhoods like Broad Channel, Breezy Point and Rockaway.
“The rising water level — whether your home has been raised above it or not — will cause issues, and then having a mechanical device complicates the situation even more,” Lee said. “None of the machines are ever designed to be submerged in water.”
The brackish water, he said, corrodes the wiring and switches at the bottom.
Repairs can cost between a few hundred dollars and over a thousand dollars, depending on the damage, Lee said.
Patty Mastronardi, who lives in Howard Beach, said she’s had to replace the external lift on her house twice in the past year — four times in all since she moved back into her home in 2019.
The lift was last broken for two months because she had to wait for a worker to come fix it. The repair job cost about $1,500, she said.
“You assume that when you paid for it that it’s gonna stay fixed but you don’t know. You keep your fingers crossed,” Mastronardi said.
Her husband, who has a bad back, and her mother-in-law, who is in her eighties, use the lift frequently. When it’s out of commission, they have to use the stairs.
“They have no choice. It’s horrible. That’s the only way to get in and out of the house,” she said.
Luckily, Mastronardi’s lift survived the latest bout of local flooding — but Roger Gendron of Hamilton Beach wasn’t so lucky.
“I’m waiting for the service guy to come,” he said, “but it’s not a dire situation.” Gendron said he and his wife sometimes rely on the lift but can get up and down stairs without it.
Planning a Retreat
Elizabeth Yeampierre, the executive director of the Sunset Park climate justice organization UPROSE, who often uses a wheelchair to get around, emphasized that some New Yorkers face dire situations as the effects of climate make traveling even harder.
“Climate adaptability has to do with disability, too,” she said.
After Hurricane Sandy in 2012, some wheelchair users and residents with limited mobility remained stuck in their upper-floor apartments when high-rise elevators were without power — some for months.
To prevent those situations, Yeampierre said, “Any development that is going up should be built upland, and it should incorporate accessibility, [access] to renewable energy, to drinkable water and to food security.”
Kimberly Winston, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, said the city continues to “pursue new and innovative building designs that address the flood vulnerability, including future risk, and needs of households in order to support their housing stability.”
Klaus Jacob, a Columbia University geophysicist, pointed out that the broken lift situation demonstrates the limits of living in a place where there’s frequent street flooding — even with protective measures like elevating homes.
“Your house might be saved, but neither your car that’s parked there [nor] the access to the house can be guaranteed,” he said. “That’s why I am promoting, whenever it’s remotely feasible, not to raise the house, but to get out of the neighborhood.”
That’s a hard sell in a city with a housing shortage and a hot real estate market. But the city government is making moves to stand up a buyout program to help relocate homeowners in neighborhoods vulnerable to floods, a commitment made as part of the Adams administration’s sustainability blueprint PlaNYC.
For Doxsey in Hamilton Beach, the broken lift is only the latest frustration of living in a flood-prone area. He’s starting to think about selling the house and moving — especially as he ages.
“I don’t want to do it, but I can’t see getting old here,” Doxsey said. “This is not something you can negotiate with. This is not something you can really mitigate.”