The grinding cost of climate change on one street, in one house

DeVito told me this story outside of his home on Dryden Court, a short dead-end street of modest homes tucked behind a grocery store and a small shopping center with a Michael’s and a Party City. He and his neighbor, Dom Rogo, 52, were marveling at the scale of the damage done around them. On one side, a family pumping six feet of water out of the basement that doubled as a bedroom; there, the bed floated to the ceiling like a boat. On the other, the homeowner, Masie Lam, 50, had enlisted others to help clear out a basement that, like DeVito’s, had flooded thanks to a broken window. On Monday, a number of personal belongings were securely stored on the lowest level of her house. On Thursday, they were on the curb in garbage bags, sodden and ruined. Lam hoped that the Sanitation Department would pick them up; if not, then what? Her neighbors had dumpsters in place, something Lam couldn’t afford.