On 1 September 2021, New York City was hit by the remnants of Hurricane Ida. In the devastating flooding which followed 13 people died, the majority of them trapped in basement homes. With compelling eyewitness accounts and previously unseen footage, Our World tells the story of what happened that night, and asks what it means for New York City's future as climate change makes extreme weather events more likely.
Most of those who died were in Queens, in basement apartments in neighbourhoods like Hollis, Woodside and Flushing, homes that are often almost invisible from the street. Central Park recorded 3.15 inches of rain in a single hour that night, a record, and the subway was brought to a standstill.
Because the film is told through the people who lived it, the pictures had to carry the narrative. I spent a lot of time in those basements and on the streets above them, using the Sony F55 and Fujinon XK20-120 to find the details that tell the story without words: a tide line on the wall, a narrow stairwell, a single window at pavement height. The DJI Air 2S put those streets into context, showing how ordinary they look from above, and how little warning there was for the people below.
