My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: New York, specifically NYC
My brother has an apartment in Queens without a lease where most of my family is now staying after Hurricane Sandy devastated all of their homes. He has no central heat (oil burner destroyed) and no electricity with no fix on the horizon, but he does have running water. My family is living there running a generator and propane heat in order to survive while they wait for FEMA and the insurance companies to make decisions on their other dwellings.
My brother's landlord is saying he is going to come to the house and shut off the water on Thursday because of the Nor'Easter that is coming in may freeze the pipes in the house. If he does this, my family is truly in trouble as they will not have access to ANY dwelling with running water!
I think that since he pays rent and lives in the apartment he has an implied lease that grants him legal protections against this kind of action. Can anyone please help me in pointing out any relevant information, laws or other advice that I can provide to my brother in order to have him stop his landlord from doing this? Their health and wellbeing is at stake here.
Edit note: He has plenty of fuel and can keep the whole place warm to stop the pipes freezing. Its a two floor house, the bottom floor was basically flooded out but his second floor apt was untouched.

