East Harlem NYCHA residents left without heat or hot water Christmas weekend
EAST HARLEM, Manhattan (WABC) -- Residents in an East Harlem NYCHA complex in East Harlem have been without heat or hot water since Christmas Eve.
Marian Garcia was relaxing in her apartment at the Lincoln Houses eating Chinese food Saturday before her afternoon quickly turned chaotic.
"Got up and noticed a puddle by my bedroom door, I said where this come from?" Garcia said.
High winds from the weekend storm caused a water tank on top of Garcia's building to fall over sending a flood of water into apartments below.
"I thought it was just my apartment," Garcia said. "When I came out into the hallway, that's when I seen it was way more the staircase had extreme water coming down."
Resident Victor Colon said it was like "a whole river" coming down the stairs.
Garcia said this was the worst she has seen since moving into the building in 2011.
"This was the worst, it was the whole building, every floor," Garcia said.
Some residents acted quickly to prevent the water from coming into their apartments.
"I was using a broom and pushing the water away but everyone else got flooded," Colon said.
As of Monday, every resident Eyewitness News reporter Crystal Cranmore has spoken with has either heat in some rooms or no heat at all.
"We are freezing. We are using an elector heater," Garcia said.
Christmas weekend was the first time in four years the city saw temperatures reach single digits.
Yet residents at the Lincoln Houses were determined to keep the holiday spirit alive.
"I went hard this year, so I wasn't going to let anyone break my spirit," another resident said.
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