Nearly 10 years after Superstorm Sandy hit New York, a newly created City Hall office is making sure all New Yorkers are ready and safe when severe weather hits.  

Kizzy Charles-Guzman, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice is leading the charge to make sure all neighborhoods are equally prepared.  

Charles-Guzman was on the ground helping thousands in the hardest-hit coastal communities navigate outages and emergency funding. Back then, she “really saw those disparities in terms of … ability to access those resources,” she told News 12’s Amanda Bossard.  

The new office’s multi-layered approach will first focus on building a more resilient city by investing billions of dollars into infrastructure, such as improving catch basins to floodwalls in Red Hook and Manhattan. 

The initiative will not only focus on preparing for storms, but other potential threats like extreme heat, power failures and air pollution.  

Charles-Guzman says it is just as important to also educate New Yorkers about resources they have, like flood insurance. She says that even a decade after Superstorm Sandy, housing remains a major vulnerability in the city.