Trump’s Advice: “Sorry, you’ll just have to get your mops & buckets ready!”
This Thursday, October 29, marks the 8th anniversary of Hurricane Sandy’s devastating flooding that killed 96 residents of the New York – New Jersey Metropolitan region, caused more than $70 billion in damage to homes and businesses, and disrupted hospitals, sewage treatment plants, airports, seaports, subways, tunnels and other critical infrastructure for weeks, months and in some cases years. The greatest devastation occurred in the most vulnerable working class, Black and Latino communities across the region.
New York City and their counterparts across the region have failed to develop or implement an effective plan to prevent a recurrence of this disaster, even though climate change and sea level rise make storms of this kind more frequent and devastating. On January 28, 2020, President Trump summed up this drift when he killed a US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) feasibility study, with a tweet: “Sorry, you’ll just have to get your mops & buckets ready!” Politicians from City Hall to the White House have squandered eight years in which they should have created and implemented regional strategies to address this regional threat. While our officials dither, other cities – from New Orleans to Houston to Venice – have advanced bold plans to protect themselves.
What is needed is a comprehensive plan to protect the entire metropolitan region from this existential regional threat. The Storm Surge Working Group (SSWG) has developed this plan: The Sandy SeaGate system. This system would consist of two movable SeaGates that would be closed prior to major storm surges to prevent flooding. The Outer Harbor SeaGate would stretch five miles from Breezy Point in the Rockaways, NY to Sandy Hook, NJ, with fortified dunes stretching the length of both peninsulas to contain surges. A second, mile-long East River SeaGate near the Throgs Neck Bridge would prevent flooding from Long Island Sound. Both SeaGates would be designed to keep navigation channels fully operational when the gates are open. Similar SeaGate systems have functioned safely for more than half a century in Stamford, CT, Providence, RI and New Bedford, MA, and others are being planned in dozens of cities around the world, using proven, safe, environmentally-sound technology.
The Sandy SeaGate system estimated to cost $40 billion will prevent flooding for a century or longer – flooding that otherwise would cause hundreds of billions of dollars in damage and extensive loss of life from repeated catastrophic floods. SeaGates would remain open 99.9% of the time and would be designed to protect the fisheries, tidal flows and other natural systems of the Hudson River and New York Harbor Estuary. When closed during major storms and hurricanes, they would keep water levels in the harbor from rising, allowing storm and sanitary sewers to drain normally. Surge levels just outside the SeaGates on the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound may rise slightly, but by no more than a few inches. The SeaGates would be supplemented by a layered defense consisting of small shoreline levees or seawalls in flood-prone areas to address sea level rise and more routine flooding, and restored wetlands and other natural systems designed to prevent wave damage and enhance environmental and water quality in the estuary.
Some groups, ignoring the science, have announced their opposition to any effective steps to protect the region and its most vulnerable residents from devastating storm surges. Others have proposed that wetlands alone can stop future storm surges. While wetlands provide valuable ecosystems and protect eroding shorelines, they offer no protection from storm surges. We simply cannot allow this misguided opposition to prevent effective steps that could protect our region from major storm-surge threats.
The SSWG’s goal is to have the regional Congressional Delegation direct the USACE to advance plans for the Sandy SeaGate system. When Congress directed the USACE to develop a similar plan for New Orleans, its $14 billion system was completed in less than five years. Initial funding for the Sandy SeaGate project could come from the multi-trillion dollar national infrastructure and climate program proposed by Joe Biden.
The Storm Surge Working Group is a voluntary alliance of more than 30 prominent engineers, planners, architects and environmentalists who have worked since 2009 to develop plans for the SeaGate system. It is chaired by Professor Malcolm Bowman, a world-renowned oceanographer at SUNY Stony Brook. Professor Bowman can be reached at malcolm.Bowman@StonyBrook.edu
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Contact: Robert D. Yaro
For Immediate Release
yaro@design.upenn.edu 917.797.6806
Monday, October 25, 2020
