Looking Ahead

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis Think of a sea barrier for future Sandys The hurricane named Sandy is still the major interest the T&V neighborhood, since our largest community the ST/PCV area, with 56 residential buildings and 11,250 apartments (25,000 residents) is not fully recovered, and neither is the Wall Street area, our major employer. The combined hurricane and Northwester storm generated a gigantic wave which blew down New York and neighboring state sea shore properties , killed over a hundred innocents and destroyed the lives of thousands.. This was not a new contingency, in the 1938 hurricane floods in New York 60 lives were lost, and we can look back to recent large destructive floods m New Orleans, LA and the entire Gulf, (Katrina,Camilla and Donna . 2005 and after), on the NC barrier islands where the Wright brothers learned to fly (20 destructive storms since 1965), on Dolphin Island with a bridge to Mobile, AL ( destroyed every three years ) and Irene (five deaths in NY, 2011).The recovery funding has been mostly via taxpayer money and subsided insurance. These are all important cases that show the foolishness of building and rebuilding the same homes year after year, sometimes with national flood insurance (highly subsidized) and FEMA (taxpayer subsidy) the main payers. Sometimes, as for Sandy, the homeowner policy writer will argue that the damage is not covered, since it was not caused by wind or rain, and sometimes, through government (Gov. Ciomo ) intervention, the high wind deductible for water damage will be waived. Some taxpayers have balked; certain towns, imn NC have refused property tax increases, as long as rhe usual "repair and break again" rhythm comtiniues. And why should it. Smart comminmities auch as those of Flotida Keys, require that new consrruction be planned several feet above the 100 year water high mark. Homes are being fitted with composite concrete block corners and supports, with the underspace kept uncluttered, for the hurricane raised water to pass through. The marinas, much damaged by the annual hurricanes, some heavy ones conemporaneous witk Katrina, lost their accessability when the storms picked up and carried away the simple wooden walkways. They are being refitted nowadays with heavy planks of a composite material, punched through with holes, to let the owerflow waters recede. Windbreaker planks edging the marinas are being removed, to protect the docks from head-on wave damage, and boat owners are expected to take their craft to higher properties (prearranged rentals available) or storage marinas.This regimentation may be endurable in the Keys, where wave damage has always been a factor and homes have constructed accordingly; in the high priced seacoast communities further north people have sometimes invested heavily in beachfront summer homes, in some cases actually living in them year round, and this suggestion , coming from environmentalist sources, may be an anathema. Even while global warming is happening, and the seas are rising, why should this be “in my life?” To serious people, playing “just one more time” should by now be in the past. Serious planning is necessary particularly in New York, where multistory hausing and business structures are at risk., Granted that the surge from Huricane Sandy was 14 feet high, the most since1938. one must consider that if the wave that Hurricane Irene produced in 2011 had risen one more f oot it would have flooded the subeays. Protection for our downtown New York cannot be provided just by building higher up, the cities have been built at river estuaries since the origins of civilization. Protection for the the apartment buildings and offices requires high cost engineering, phased over the period of several decades. Major European cities have had sea and wave protectors for ages. NYC has had offers from several European firms to build sea barriers; the one protecting the Dutch cities and St. Petersburg envisions barrier walls in the ocean, from the Rockaway Peninsula to Sandy Hook, while a Dutch firm sees a central wall at first, then supported by left and right arms. The cost? Whatever it takes is not bad, considering that Sandy destroyed an estimated $20B of property and 10-30B of business activity. Netherlands, a country the size of VT and NH combined, where 2/3ds of an 16 M population live below sea level, has the most barriers. It also has its maintenance in place, with scheduled work to stop whatever perils can be endangering the structure. This is no longer just a little Dutch boy sticking his finger in the hole and saving a nation, the project is a proof that wave barriers can be effective for ages, even to the extent of reclaiming land. NY needs the barriers just to slow down the sea surge, not to stop it. It might really be a good idea for the environmentalists and the city and state to get to gether, soonest, on a plan; five miles of a barrier wall might save us from more Sandys. Wally Dobelis and the staff of T&V wish a happy belated Thanksgiving to all of our readers

Labels: FEMA, Florida Keys, Netherlands