NYC Council to review Mayor Adams’ response to smoke from Canadian wildfires

The New York City Council will hold an oversight hearing next week into how Mayor Adams responded to the smoke that blew into the city from Canada as a result of wildfires that sent the air quality index soaring to unhealthy levels, the Daily News has learned.

The hearing, which is set for next Thursday by the Council’s Oversight and Investigations Committee, is being held to determine whether the Adams’ administration response to the dangerous haze was adequate and how it can be improved upon in the future.

“The question we want to answer is were we prepared, and if not — and I think we were not — then what do we have to do to be prepared for the next one,” said Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan), who heads the oversight committee. “This is the second one. And we don’t know what can come next.”

Smoke from the wildfires blanketed the city last Friday, but those conditions were nowhere near as bad as they were a month ago when the sky over the city turned an orange hue due to the smoke.

Mayor Adams’ initial response in June came under fire as too little, too late — with critics charging that advisories didn’t come out soon enough and failed to warn of the health risks.

On the afternoon of June 6, when the smoke first began to cover the city, Adams’ team posted a tweet warning New Yorkers to “limit your outdoor activities,” as the smoke can be dangerous to inhale. But it took until 11:30 p.m. that night for his administration to announce all outdoor activities at public schools would be suspended the next day.

“We are 36 hours into an air quality emergency and other than a late night suspension of outdoor [school] activities, our city government has not taken a single proactive step to protect New Yorkers,” Councilman Lincoln Restler said at the time.

Restler also went on to demand “a full accounting and oversight hearing on why the city failed to respond to these conditions in a timely manner.”

According to one Council source with knowledge of the matter, the hearing will focus on the administration’s public information efforts about health risks and precautions, and guidance for commercial and residential buildings about air filtration and mask distribution.

“The administration’s inadequate response to the air quality emergency demonstrated a lack of emergency preparedness that we should all want improved to help protect the people in our city,” that Council source said. “The communication to notify the public with clear, comprehensive guidance occurred late and was insufficient to fulfill the government’s responsibility to prepare New Yorkers for the severity of the emergency and the threats it posed to their health. This left families unknowingly exposing children to health risks and older adults in danger.”

Adams has defended his efforts surrounding the smoky conditions.

“What we should really try to prevent doing is to give any indication that this administration did not proactively respond and did not move in a right direction to let New Yorkers know,” he said at the time. “Let’s not create controversy where there is none.”

Adams’ spokesperson Kate Smart defended the administration, saying that it “mounted a whole-of-government response to keep New Yorkers informed and protected during last month’s smoke event.”

“While forecasting air quality is difficult to do and forecasts are available only 24 hours in advance, public messaging around potentially bad air quality began a week before the worst of the smoke,” she said. “Throughout the week, we continued to communicate frequently, take action to protect New Yorkers, especially those most vulnerable, like delivery workers and New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, and made high-quality masks available to everyone across the five boroughs.”

Asked specifically about the messaging that began “a week before,” Smart pointed to messages sent over the Notify NYC system about poor air quality forecasts. According to Smart, more than 1 million New Yorkers are signed up for Notify NYC.