Former NYC senior climate official on lessons from Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy hit New York City in October 2012, killing more than 40 people and causing $19 billion in damage. Researchers at Columbia University played a key scientific and policy role in the city’s preparedness for and response to the storm.exist This Q&A series After 10 years, we asked several people in important positions to look back and look to the future.
For reporters: As the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Sandy approaches, View our list of experts who can comment.
After Sandy, Civil Engineer Daniel Zarilli Holds a series of top policy positions in NYC, serving as NYC’s first Resiliency Director under MChief climate advisor under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Mayor de Blasio.During his eight-year tenure, he founded A series of large-scale projects to prepare cities for major storms, heat and sea level rise, reduce greenhouse gas emissions in cities and promote environmental justice. 2021, he became a Special Climate and Sustainability Advisor to Columbia University, in partnership with the Columbia Climate Institute.
How aware were city officials of the potential for disaster before a hurricane hit?
Hurricane Sandy wasn’t entirely unexpected. In 2007, city officials released a sustainability plan that included some descriptions of the city’s vulnerability to coastal storms. There are also a lot of people who remember Hurricane Donna in 1960 or the various northeasterly winds of the past few decades, but all this knowledge and planning has a bit of an academic feel to it. Just a year ago, the threat of Hurricane Irene, which ended up largely bypassing New York City, didn’t help either. Sandy pierced it with bright colors. Until then, it was way beyond our imagination.
After Sandy, you took on a series of top roles to future-proof the city. What did you do to prepare?
For nearly a decade prior to Sandy, I have worked on the waterfront, managing the maintenance and construction of city marinas and bulkheads, overseeing cruise terminals and other offshore assets, and working with coastal communities on various projects.Experience along the city’s 520 miles of coastline, coupled with my training as an engineer, made me mayor after Sandy [Michael] Bloomberg is sticking to his initiative to rebuild New York and make it more resilient.I wrote the coastal protection chapter the resulting strategy. It was through this initiative that I was able to understand the physical, social and economic needs of the city. It first led to my appointment as the city’s first director of resilience, and then a variety of other sustainability, resilience and climate policy roles at City Hall over the next eight years.
Are there obstacles to getting things going?
After Hurricane Sandy, there were numerous bureaucratic hurdles in securing funding and launching programs, but these were ultimately manageable. The lack of a national resilience strategy prevents every community from facing climate-related disasters. Thankfully, the urgency at the time prompted us to overcome these hurdles, complete important short-term protections, and begin work on longer-term protections. In the long run, the real hurdle will be overcoming the natural inertia that arises once the urgency subsides. However, ongoing climate impacts, be it heat waves or heavy rainfall events like Hurricane Ida, continue to put enormous pressure on the city.
What would you say is your greatest success? What’s the big failure?
I am most proud of how we have put New York City on a path to urban resilience and rapid decarbonization. Over the past 10 years, we have positioned New York as a global leader in addressing climate change. That includes launching a $20 billion comprehensive climate adaptation plan to align the city’s greenhouse gas emissions reductions with the Paris Agreement, as well as divesting pension funds from owners of fossil fuel reserves. We created world-leading legislation to reduce carbon pollution from the city’s largest buildings and launched a groundbreaking program to integrate environmental justice into the city’s decision-making. I can trace back to Sandy’s experience and the smart activism that has allowed the city to achieve these results.
If I have any regrets, it’s that New York is still largely stuck on its pre-Sandy org chart.I have formerly known as The mayor improves climate governance by appointing a deputy mayor with clear public responsibility to convene and lead a cabinet of agencies and offices that work together to reduce emissions, build resilience, ensure environmental justice, and expand engagement with communities and Dialogue with civic leaders who are critical to this work.
Have you or someone you know been hit by a storm?
I have lived in three boroughs since moving here in 1999, so I know many people who have experienced these effects. My family lived on Staten Island when the storm hit, and we still live there today, not far from some of the hardest-hit communities on the East Coast. We were lucky enough to be out of the flood zone, so only suffered some minor damage and a two-week power outage. My own inconvenience pales in comparison to some of my neighbors.
Some of the solutions now being sought or discussed are quite controversial. On the one hand, we prepare to level the beloved park for the seawall. Is this a good idea? How about a retreat from an unpopular beachfront?
Come back after these projects are done and you’ll find a lot of controversies exaggerated. Instead, you’ll see parks elevated and improved as we protect New Yorkers from devastating storm surge and other climate risks.take Eastside Coastal Resilience Project E.g. More than 110,000 New Yorkers, many of whom live in public or other low-income housing, will now be protected from what they experienced during Sandy. This is not a trivial improvement.
Retreat is a more complicated idea. And the hardest time to introduce the concept is after a storm, when helping people get home safely is the only way to go. Any conversation about the future of the community must take place before disaster strikes, balancing many considerations. I’m afraid the delicate nature of these conversations will mean that nature will have the final say on the outcome of the process. If we can, we must go first.
What else needs to be considered?
I am well aware that an important lesson from Sandy is that the risks posed by climate change are unmanageable if we do not reduce carbon pollution. If we do not end our reliance on fossil fuels and achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, we are rapidly approaching the limit of elasticity. Of course, this does not mean that climate adaptation is doomed to fail. All work to protect communities, upgrade infrastructure, and reduce risk is critical. But if we continue to pump carbon pollution into the atmosphere, fueling sea-level rise and providing extra energy for upcoming storms, it won’t last as long as we’d like.
Will New York survive long term?
certainly. For more than 400 years, New Yorkers have continued to reimagine the city through threats and changes. But that doesn’t mean New York won’t be reshaped by climate change. What we are facing now is of a completely different nature. Storms, rain and heat can all cause changes in our relationship to our cities and each other. The relentless nature of sea level rise will dramatically reshape our coasts and force us to make many difficult choices. I don’t think most New Yorkers have fully dealt with this reality.
understand more: Meeting On October 28, co-hosted by the Columbia Climate School, recovery efforts following Hurricane Sandy will be further explored. What works and what doesn’t? Who benefits and who lags behind? What have we learned? This event is free and open to the public. register here.
