The neighborhood of Rosedale is waiting for its next flood.

For as long as most residents can remember, there has never been a summer without one. The rains that are a mere inconvenience for tourists, for residents out here on the far reaches of Queens just north of John F. Kennedy Airport, the slightest downpour could mean evacuating their homes for a night or even weeks at a time.

Much of Southeast Queens, an area that includes the neighborhoods of Jamaica, St. Albans and Hollis, and parts of the Rockaways, sits on a massive aquifer that swells with groundwater and spills over into streets and eventually into basements and homes after heavy rains. The issue was caustic for residents during the 2013 Democratic primaries in New York City, where residents gathered at a town hall at CUNY's York College months before the elections and demanded government officials to save their streets from flooding and thousands of dollars of property damage.

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