Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Should we protect ourselves against storm surges?

From the Wall Street Journal:

Scientists are laboring to make their predictions more reliable. While they do, New York has become an urban experiment in the ways that seaboard cities can adapt to climate change over the next century. For their part, the city's long-term planners are taking action but are trying to balance the cost of re-engineering the largest city in the U.S. against the uncertainties of climate forecasts.

"We can't make multibillion-dollar decisions based on the hypothetical," says Rohit Aggarwala, the city's director of long-term planning and sustainability.

Still, prompted by a possibility of floods from higher seas, some university-based marine researchers and civil engineers are debating whether New York ought to protect its low-lying financial district, port, power grid and subways with storm surge barriers like the mobile bulwarks that safeguard London, Rotterdam, Netherlands, and St. Petersburg, Russia. Engineering concepts for multibillion-dollar barriers around New York harbor were discussed here this week during the H209 Water Forum, an international conference on coastal cities and climate change, held by the Henry Hudson 400 Foundation at the Liberty Science Center.

10 comments:

Missing Foundation said...

If the developers want to build on the waterfront, let them pay for it, not the Middle Class.

They are making the profit, and we are stuck with the infrastructure costs. Our taxes subsidize them already.

Bullshit!

Anonymous said...

Why not protect all of Long Island Sound by erecting a barrier between the North Fork and Connecticut?

Anonymous said...

How nice, build a barrier to protect Manhattan. All that blocked storm surge will just hang a right into Jamaica Bay to make the surge there greater. Save Wall Street and drown Brooklyn and Queens.

Anonymous said...

you cannot stop nature. stop trying. the hubris is amazing!

Adolf Bloomhitler said...

All that blocked storm surge will just hang a right into Jamaica Bay to make the surge there greater. Save Wall Street and drown Brooklyn and Queens.
.....................................

Heh heh heh heh heh heh

Sergey Kadinsky said...

Honestly, finding a way to keep the polar ice caps frozen is a more effective solution than surge barriers in major harbors.

Liman said...

So southern Brooklyn and Queens are shit out of luck?

I had a debate with a professor on line which happened to be about Montauk. He said a 50 foot storm surge (which has never happened, not even close) would destroy the everything east of Amagansett.

When I pointed out to him that most of the land there is over 50 feet in elevation, up to about 170 feet, he pulled an Emily Litella. "Oh. Never mind."

Moral of the story: don't believe the hype.

Anonymous said...

Thank raptor jesus I live in Flushang!

Anonymous said...

"Honestly, finding a way to keep the polar ice caps frozen is a more effective solution than surge barriers in major harbors."

Hubris, hubris, hubris....

Anonymous said...

We have had previous hurricanes that have flooded all of New York City below Canal Street in the 18th & 19th Centuries in 1788, 1821.

Since I have always been fascinated by hurricanes, I found this article interesting.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2090959/hurricanes_of_new_york_seeking_shelter.html?cat=37

Our best defense is to maintain low-lying ground as a recreational area and buffer zone. We should use modern storm tracking technologies and get the hell out of dodge when the big one comes.