New York – As residents of the Coney Island peninsula, which includes Coney Island, Manhattan Beach, Seagate and Brighton Beach, attempt to put the pieces of their lives back together after Hurricane Sandy, one elected official has been redoubling his efforts to protect residents of the affected area.
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“We have been working on a whole beach protection project for almost twenty years and as of last April we have secured over $26.2 million in funding from the federal, state and city governments for this project,” Congressman Jerrold Nadler told VIN News. “The work was scheduled to start this December but unfortunately, the storm came through before that.”
Among the protective measures being discussed are surge walls, bulkheads, jetties and most importantly t-groins, large rock formations set up in a long line parallel to the shore to redirect water, particularly during a storm, but Nadler cautioned that in the face of a meteorological event such as Hurricane Sandy, waterfront areas would still be vulnerable.
“None of these options are designed to protect against a storm of Sandy’s magnitude, although they would certainly provide some protection and are a good short term solution,” said Nadler. “This is an important project for residents of the Coney Island peninsula, but it is clear that we have to start giving a lot of thought on how to protect the area from severe weather events.”
Nadler cautioned that we can expect more Sandy-like storms to strike the area with greater frequency.
“Seagate and Coney Island are more vulnerable than ever,” explained Nadler. “With global warming, our oceans are warmer which creates more energy and more violent winds. Additionally, sea level has been rising five inches every decade, compared with just one inch a decade as in previous years, which means that storm surges will be that much higher. We are going to be having more violent storms more often and we have to prepare for that eventuality.”
According to Nadler, Hurricane Sandy was a firsthand lesson in the need to flood-proof the greater New York area, a plan that will require much thought and significant amounts of funding.
“How do you spend billions of dollars to fortify flood prone areas against storms like Sandy?” queried Nadler. “We don’t have the money, we certainly don’t want to spend that kind of money, but when nature hits you in the face like this, how can you not? Think about how many billions of dollars in damage were caused by this hurricane.”
One possibility being discussed is the creation of storm barriers, which would consist of a very high wall protruding from the ocean wall which could either be opened to allow ships through or could be retractable or only raised during major weather events. Barriers could be erected in several of the vulnerable areas and Nadler estimates the cost to be between ten and twelve billion dollars.
” We have to protect our infrastructure, our power lines, our subways and so much more,” cautioned Nadler. “In the 1990’s, the City Council discovered fault lines lying under Manhattan and they passed new building codes to ensure that all new construction be earthquake resistant. Now that we have seen the potential for massive flooding in the area, we have to think similarly as we work on rebuilding the damaged areas. Hurricane Sandy should have been a major wake up call for us and it would be a great shame if it weren’t.”
Will Nadler’s proposed Cross Harbor Tunnel be built so as not to flood?
finally a politican who thinks about infrastructure
While protective measures are nice, maybe we need to seriously think about where we will rebuild. We need to think of barrier islands as just that, barriers, and not beachfront housing.
We don’t have billions of dollars to build these mega projects which will do nothing to protect the shoreline in a big storm Its time to tell the residents of these areas that they rebuild at their own risk and the government will no longer subsidize their insurance at an annual cost to taxpayers of billions of dollars. These people should cut their losses and MOVE elsewhere.