rockin'robin
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NEW YORK — When experts sketch out nightmare hurricane scenarios, a New York strike tends to be high on the list.
Besides shaking skyscrapers, a major hurricane could send the Atlantic Ocean surging into the nation's largest city, flooding Wall Street, subways and densely packed neighborhoods.
As a new hurricane season starts Monday, some scientists and engineers are floating an ambitious solution: Barriers to choke off the surging sea and protect flood-prone areas.
The plan involves deploying giant barriers and gates that would move into place — in some cases rising out of the water — for storms. One proposal calls for a 5-mile-long barrier between New Jersey and Queens.
• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Natural Science Center.
No one has formally proposed the structures, which would require extensive government reviews and billions of dollars.
But a first-ever conference on the subject this spring drew 100 researchers and engineers, who provided various conceptual designs. City emergency management officials say they're interested in hearing more if details develop.
Some scientists have questioned whether the barriers would be environmentally sound and socially equitable. But proponents say the structures could offer the best chance of preventing catastrophe in a city with hundreds of miles of shoreline, nearly 8.3 million residents and a vast web of crucial underground infrastructure.
New Yorkers are "living under the volcano, and people haven't thought about it," says Douglas Hill, an engineer who began discussing the idea several years ago with Stony Brook University oceanography professor Malcolm J. Bowman.
Warnings that New Orleans faced disaster from a major hurricane proved devastatingly true, they note, when Katrina struck in August 2005. The storm breached levees, flooded most of the city and killed more than 1,500 people in New Orleans and elsewhere.
The next year, former National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield told a congressional committee that "it is not a question of if a major hurricane will strike the New York area, but when."
The city has been hit before, including by a September 1821 hurricane that raised tides by 13 feet in an hour and flooded all of Manhattan south of Canal Street — an area that now includes the nation's financial capital.
Depending on its track, a Category 3 storm — with sustained winds of 111 to 130 mph, akin to an infamous 1938 hurricane that swept through nearby Long Island — could produce a storm surge as high as 25 feet in some parts of the city. Officials estimate as many as 600,000 people's homes could be flooded, and 3 million would have to evacuate because of flooding and other perils; economic loss estimates top $100 billion.
Forecasters expect a fairly average hurricane season this year. But the year's first tropical depression, a potential precursor to a tropical storm or hurricane, formed Thursday, before the season even officially began. It wasn't expected to threaten land.
Hurricanes aren't the only flood threat. Nor'easters also have caused storm-surge problems in the city, and scientists have projected that the waters around the city could rise by 2 feet or more in the coming decades because of global warming, making coastal flooding more frequent.
The idea of barricading against storm-tossed seas is centuries old, with examples standing in places from London to Providence, R.I.
In New York, a set of barriers a mile long or less at three critical points could protect 50 square miles of the city and New Jersey, according to Hill. The locations: the Narrows, the gateway to New York Harbor near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge; the northern end of the East River, where it meets Long Island Sound; and the southern end of the Arthur Kill, a waterway between Staten Island and New Jersey.
Barriers there would shield Manhattan and parts of the four outer boroughs but still leave large, low-lying areas exposed, especially in Brooklyn and Queens.
Some would gain protection under an alternative idea for a single, 5-mile-long barrier between Sandy Hook, N.J., and the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens — an idea devised by London-based infrastructure consulting firm Halcrow Group Ltd.
Experts Anticipate 'Nightmare' Situation if Hurricane Hit New York City - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News - FOXNews.com
Besides shaking skyscrapers, a major hurricane could send the Atlantic Ocean surging into the nation's largest city, flooding Wall Street, subways and densely packed neighborhoods.
As a new hurricane season starts Monday, some scientists and engineers are floating an ambitious solution: Barriers to choke off the surging sea and protect flood-prone areas.
The plan involves deploying giant barriers and gates that would move into place — in some cases rising out of the water — for storms. One proposal calls for a 5-mile-long barrier between New Jersey and Queens.
• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Natural Science Center.
No one has formally proposed the structures, which would require extensive government reviews and billions of dollars.
But a first-ever conference on the subject this spring drew 100 researchers and engineers, who provided various conceptual designs. City emergency management officials say they're interested in hearing more if details develop.
Some scientists have questioned whether the barriers would be environmentally sound and socially equitable. But proponents say the structures could offer the best chance of preventing catastrophe in a city with hundreds of miles of shoreline, nearly 8.3 million residents and a vast web of crucial underground infrastructure.
New Yorkers are "living under the volcano, and people haven't thought about it," says Douglas Hill, an engineer who began discussing the idea several years ago with Stony Brook University oceanography professor Malcolm J. Bowman.
Warnings that New Orleans faced disaster from a major hurricane proved devastatingly true, they note, when Katrina struck in August 2005. The storm breached levees, flooded most of the city and killed more than 1,500 people in New Orleans and elsewhere.
The next year, former National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield told a congressional committee that "it is not a question of if a major hurricane will strike the New York area, but when."
The city has been hit before, including by a September 1821 hurricane that raised tides by 13 feet in an hour and flooded all of Manhattan south of Canal Street — an area that now includes the nation's financial capital.
Depending on its track, a Category 3 storm — with sustained winds of 111 to 130 mph, akin to an infamous 1938 hurricane that swept through nearby Long Island — could produce a storm surge as high as 25 feet in some parts of the city. Officials estimate as many as 600,000 people's homes could be flooded, and 3 million would have to evacuate because of flooding and other perils; economic loss estimates top $100 billion.
Forecasters expect a fairly average hurricane season this year. But the year's first tropical depression, a potential precursor to a tropical storm or hurricane, formed Thursday, before the season even officially began. It wasn't expected to threaten land.
Hurricanes aren't the only flood threat. Nor'easters also have caused storm-surge problems in the city, and scientists have projected that the waters around the city could rise by 2 feet or more in the coming decades because of global warming, making coastal flooding more frequent.
The idea of barricading against storm-tossed seas is centuries old, with examples standing in places from London to Providence, R.I.
In New York, a set of barriers a mile long or less at three critical points could protect 50 square miles of the city and New Jersey, according to Hill. The locations: the Narrows, the gateway to New York Harbor near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge; the northern end of the East River, where it meets Long Island Sound; and the southern end of the Arthur Kill, a waterway between Staten Island and New Jersey.
Barriers there would shield Manhattan and parts of the four outer boroughs but still leave large, low-lying areas exposed, especially in Brooklyn and Queens.
Some would gain protection under an alternative idea for a single, 5-mile-long barrier between Sandy Hook, N.J., and the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens — an idea devised by London-based infrastructure consulting firm Halcrow Group Ltd.
Experts Anticipate 'Nightmare' Situation if Hurricane Hit New York City - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News - FOXNews.com
