‘Subway Cassandra’ on Hurricane Sandy a decade later
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.at 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.
Since the 1990s, geophysicists have Claus Jacob Started to publicly warn that New York could end up seeing a catastrophic storm fueled by climate change. From 2008 to 2019, he served on the New York City Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body that informs New York City’s efforts to adapt infrastructure to climate change.Most famously he Produce unexpectedly accurate predictions Where the subway will flood.After the storm, Time magazine named him one of its “50 Important People of 2012,” and New York Magazine named him a “Subway Cassandra” After the Greek priestess, her prophecies were always accurate, but destined to be ignored. He continues to play an important role in advocating for preparedness for rising sea levels and extreme weather.
Klaus Jacob at the South Street Ferry subway station in Manhattan, flooded by Hurricane Sandy as he predicted. (Jorge Meyer)
How are you involved in protecting the city from climate change?
In the mid-1990s, mostly as a seismologist, I worked with colleagues to assess the impact of rare magnitude 5, 6, and even 7 earthquakes on New York. I was showing the results at a party, and my Colombian colleague Cynthia Rosenzweig came up to me and asked, “Oh, can you do this kind of risk assessment for hurricanes?” I said, “I don’t know, but let’s try. “Through federal and state grants, interactions with city agencies, and the New York City Panel on Climate Change, this is the beginning of more than 20 years of collaboration on the impact of climate change on cities.
To what extent has the city been warned of such a storm? To what extent were the authorities heeded?
I work on climate change with my colleagues adaptation plan for [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] Released in 2008, but not implemented. But the city is starting to think more about it, as is New York State. So we got funding for a statewide assessment called ClimAID.I worked with colleagues and students and we wrote the now infamous Chapter 9 New York City Transportation, published in 2011. It details the impact of a Sandy-like storm on all MTA systems, including subways. Unfortunately, this assessment was only validated after a year. The MTA was listening at the time, but the one-year gap between that report and Sandy was too short to build system-wide resiliency. The MTA used our report at least before Sandy made landfall to remove control and signaling systems from tunnels we said would be flooded to prevent them from being damaged by salt water. If they hadn’t dismantled those systems, the subway would have been operating most of the time in a week instead of nearly a month, saving the city’s economy tens of billions of dollars.
What is your personal experience with storms?
I have always lived in Pyrmont. New York, a small village on the upper Hudson River in New York. When my wife and I bought our house in 2001, I could see it was in a low-lying area and I was already worried about flooding. But we were denied the zoning difference to raise the house 6 feet on the new foundation, which I think is what it needs. We were only allowed to do two and a half feet. I fell asleep in the storm. I was too tired to prepare for Sandy’s onslaught: move furniture to the second floor and lift the dishwasher to the kitchen counter. After a few hours we had more than two feet of muddy water in our living room and kitchen – about as I expected. A week later, the village allowed us to raise the house to the height we originally requested, but it was too expensive to do the second time. At least we were able to repair the damage.
What have we learned from the storm? Has enough action been taken since then?
Foresight is better than hindsight. Of course, hindsight and foresight together provide insight. But this requires personal and political will, as well as the resources to implement effective solutions.Notably, preventive investments in flood resilience can Prevent up to $13 every dollar lost. This is a lesson the public still has to learn and then apply.
What else needs to be considered?
Like many other coastal megacities around the world, New York needs a comprehensive plan with a vision for 2100 and beyond. Not only do these plans need to be designed for protection against storms and sea level rise — which are often unsustainable in the long run — but they must also include some measure of relocation to higher ground. Such”Manage Retreat“It takes extraordinary collaboration between government and affected communities — those that have to leave, and those that need to take in more people. Managed retreats are too hot for most politicians. New York isn’t the only one There are only a few community buyouts. However, this may be the only truly sustainable response to rising sea levels.
How do you see the future of New York?
New York needs a long-term vision of how to transform. At some point after 2100, sea level rise could exceed 10 feet. Translating this vision into action is inevitable if New York City is to maintain and renew itself as an economically and culturally viable metropolis. Without it, we’re mostly just temporary, leapfrog solutions. I am calling on the city to form a centennial committee to develop this much-needed long-term vision so we can fund projects that will last. If we fail, New York will fall victim to climate change.
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.
