As heavy rainfall on Friday caused severe flooding in parts of Brooklyn and Queens, it took Mayor Eric Adams almost until midday to declare a state of emergency across the city.

“I want to say to all New Yorkers: this is a time of heightened alertness and extreme caution,” said Adams at the beginning of his press conference.  

But the seemingly delayed response by the mayor raised concerns from New Yorkers and some other elected officials that the city didn’t do enough to prepare.

Adams and his top aides pushed back on the criticism.

“The state of emergency we’re calling is based on conditions and not predictions,” said Adams.

His other officials had similar defenses.

“One of the first efforts we took was issuing a travel advisory. We’ve been in touch with local elected officials across the city, we’ve also been in touch with nonprofits, and like the mayor said Commissioner Iscol was out there doing an interview yesterday,” said Fabien Levy, deputy mayor of communications.  

“In this case, there was no need for additional resources that a state of emergency might provide or things like issuing a travel ban. There was no need for a state of emergency to be able to do those types of things,” said Zach Iscol, commissioner of the city’s emergency management department.

The travel advisory was sent out via email on Thursday night around 11 p.m. and the first citywide notification for a flood watch went out around 3 p.m. in the afternoon yesterday.

Later in an interview with NY1, one of the city’s commissioners acknowledged they weren’t expecting such heavy rainfall.

“This was also a bigger weather event than was anticipated. The initial forecasts called for about 3-to-5 inches of rain,” said Iscol, explaining what the city’s expectations were.

“We’re now by the end of this probably going to have something close to 10 or more inches in some areas of the city,” he added.  

City officials say that Friday’s downpour was the wettest day since Hurricane Ida.

Some local officials say the mayor’s notification and preparation plans were insufficient.

“This flooding is heavier than Hurricane Ida and what was done to prepare the city for Hurricane Ida and what was done to deal with this downpour, it just pales in comparison,” said Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. “This is definitely one of those places where every news camera should have been at a meeting last night with the mayor announcing that it was going to be bad and that we needed to prepare.”

The storm also put a spotlight on the city’s need to adapt to a changing climate.  

“This changing weather pattern is the result of climate change, and the sad reality is that our climate is changing faster than our infrastructure can respond,” Rohit Aggarwala, commissioner of the city’s Environmental Protection Department.

The city’s and especially the mayor’s response on Friday to the downpour reminded many of the similar response the city had when Canadian smoke covered the city.

In June, it wasn’t until the sky was an orange color that the mayor held a press conference and city departments started handing out masks.