How Ida avoided NYC flood defenses

“The problem is that we’re seeing these impacts and changing storms faster, and the adaptations aren’t keeping pace,” he says. Lauren McPhillips, A Penn State University hydrologist who studies urban flooding.

McPhillips says New York City has made considerable progress in preparing for the floods. Over the years, the city put in more permeable architecture, green roofs and gardens, and renovated pumps and drainage pipes. These improvements were exacerbated after Sandy.

“We learned a lot of lessons from Sandy,” said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul press conference the morning after the storm. “We built resilience; our coastal coasts are much better than before. But where we are vulnerable is on our streets. ”

Sandy stands out in any discussion of the New York floods. But the difference between the 2012 hurricane and the IDA shows the city’s complex flood threat in the face of climate change. Sandy caused a strong storm surge, and the ocean entered the city. Ida poured inches of water all over the city in a short time – a problem that sea obstacles and other coastal protections cannot solve.

Although they are more vulnerable to rising sea levels in New York City and other coastal areas, any urban area calls for flooding, caused by rainfall. “The way New York City is developing has caused the problem of flooding,” he says Timon McPhearson, a researcher on urban climate resilience at the New School and a member thereof New York Panel on Climate Change.

Waterproof surfaces such as concrete cause water to flow downward, as in grasslands or forests instead of sinking into the ground. And if enough water goes along, the effects can be deadly.

With the contribution of researchers like McPhearson, New York City has developed plans to improve its defenses against storm-induced flooding. Looking forward storm water resistance plan A flood risk assessment was released in May 2021 from the city and proposed solutions ranging from social strategies to educating local councils about flood risks, to more green roofing techniques and engineering techniques such as gardens.

And the city’s Department of Environmental Protection is looking at plans for areas that are particularly hard hit in the worst storms. The Cloudburst Resiliency Analysis, Completed in 2018, examined strategies to deal with extreme rainfall events. Pilots in an area that was frequently flooded in Queens included green infrastructure, including flooded park walkways, as well as a basketball court designed to hold water in large floods.

But it would take a lot of funding to implement these or any other rainwater management solutions, and some would take a decade to do the engineering work. “We need to literally reshape the city to solve the problem,” McPhearson says. And the price is expected to be high, probably hundreds of billions of dollars. In some cases, research says it already suggests how to protect the city from flooding, but combining money and political will to act is still an obstacle.