Climate change blamed for havoc in US floods

NEW YORK (AFP) - Climate change and creaky infrastructure were blamed Friday for the scale of the impact from floods tearing through New York City when remnants of Hurricane Ida swept across the US northeast, killing at least 47 people.

We are in a whole different world, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said after the flash floods. This is a different challenge.

Record rain turned streets into rivers and shut down subway services as water cascaded onto tracks. Nearly a dozen people drowned in basement apartments.

The extreme weather, combined with a lack of preparation, stretched the United States' biggest city to breaking point.

It's no big surprise that the city seems to break down every time there's a big storm, said Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the think-tank Center for an Urban Future.

The city's infrastructure hasn't kept pace with the population growth that New York's had in the last couple of decades, let alone the increasing ferocity of storms, and rising sea levels that have come with climate change, Bowles said.

While there has been a lot of investment in big projects -- train stations, airports, new bridges -- less funding has gone to unsexy projects such as sewer lines and water mains, he said.