John’s Blog/Newsletter: SEA LEVEL RISE NOW

October 29, 2012 – Hurricane Sandy illustrated how severe storms, extreme high tides, and sea level rise can all combine for greater impact. Five years later, we have made progress, but are we thinking big enough? (FEMA image)

Like many of you, I will never forget that Tuesday five years ago, turning on the television to see images of New York City, horrifically flooded. We watched the real-time aftermath of the superstorm that hit the region the previous evening. Just a day ahead of Halloween, it looked like a Hollywood disaster movie. Cars floating out of tunnels. Subways submerged. Communities from New Jersey to Long Island with devastating flooding like the image above.

Mesmerized watching the scenes that morning, it finally hit me––why this was resonating with me in such a weird way. In my book, High Tide On Main Street: Rising Sea Level and the Coming Coastal Crisis I had described exactly that scene in exactly that location. My book was published just a week earlier. It was surreal. Two days later, I was interviewed on Sky News television (British). The anchor host said that I had “spookily…predicted the event”, which I sidestepped, not wanting to call what I did a “prediction.” I describe such things as possible scenarios.

Why Sandy was Special

At this five year anniversary of the now infamous super storm, it is a good opportunity to ask if we have learned the lessons from Sandy, in the hopes of reducing the damage from future storms. Certainly, there has been a little progress. Sandy hit New York City on the optimal path for damage, literally. It was the strongest, largest storm ever recorded, more than a thousand miles in diameter and moved on an unusual northwest course. With the center crossing the shore at Atlantic City, New Jersey, the maximum force winds on the eastern flank, hit at New York harbor. The broad funnel-shape formed by Long Island, plus the sloping underwater shelf all combined to push the storm surge towards Manhattan and up the Hudson River as far as Albany. The question is whether this can happen again and if we are better prepared. Here are my bullet points of progress, what I consider the good as well as the inadequate, or bad.

THE GOOD:

• Throughout the impact areas of New Jersey and New York, there is persistent awareness about the damage from Sandy. In New York State for example, a Building Resiliency Task Force recommended 33 changes to building codes.
• Many houses in some of the hardest hit areas were elevated as much as ten feet, when they were rebuilt.
• Programs such as Rebuild By Design – a program to spur bold innovation to improve resiliency, supported by the US Dept of Housing and Urban Development and the Rockefeller Foundation have generated some new thinking, allocating almost a billion dollars to spur innovative solutions to reduce future vulnerability, quite directly in response to the damage wrought by Superstorm Sandy. This was in addition to several billion dollars targeted by New York and New Jersey, also to reduce future vulnerability.
• There are spinoff programs include the Resilient By Design underway in the Bay Area and the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities Initiative.
• In dozens, if not hundreds, of local communities, there are now serious discussions about how to prepare for severe storms; rising sea level is also frequently put on the table. For obvious reasons New York City is a leader, but is now joined by places such as Hoboken with sophisticated plans. Similar conversations both casual and part of local government are happening from the Florida Keys up the coast, through Annapolis and Boston, around the Gulf Coast, the Pacific Coast and internationally as well.

THE BAD

• There was considerable resistance to the recommended building code changes such that most have not yet been implemented, often citing the cost. Understandably, most people do not want the expense to come “out of their pocket”, expecting state or federal funds to pay for them. The concept that government can or should indemnify us from the costs associated with all forms of flooding is dubious, but one that I will defer to another discussion.
• Generally we are designing for a repeat major storm, but not providing for rising sea level. Plans such as those for New York City are looking at how to design for the “next Sandy.” Because they set a timeframe of only 20-25 years and usually work off of mid-range scenarios for sea level, there is little sea level rise considered. The problem is that it will take years to design and complete the adaptations, such as “the big U”, a giant flood barrier. Given that infrastructure such as roads, railroads, utilities are often used for a century someone will pay the price if the assets are written off early. For example, –the Brooklyn Bridge has been in use for 134 years. Infrastructure and buildings should be designed for the future considering the probably lifespan.
• Routine Projects Grabbed Innovation Dollars – Because so much of our infrastructure is in such desperate need of repair and upgrade, a large portion of the billion dollars intended for bold innovation described above, went to rather traditional projects that were awaiting funding. It should not be a surprise. For example, because drainage systems or wastewater treatment plants needed upgrades, it was easy enough to frame the budgets as making your city more resilient for a “future Sandy.” Yet there was little of the tough solutions or big innovation that was intended.
• Engineering is usually done for mid-range scenarios–   Even where engineers and planners include rising sea level,they almost always take the mid-range of the projections. That’s bad for a few reasons:
  • Projections for sea level rise keep getting raised as the ice sheets and glaciers melt faster and faster. Today’s extremes could well be mid-range, just a decade from now.
  • When we plan for most disasters, like hurricanes and earthquakes, we plan for extreme cases, to be conservative. We should do the same for sea level.
  • Given that sea level rise is now somewhat “baked in” and will hit all coastal locations worldwide, planning for higher levels is just the safe thing to do. At the very worst, we adapt early and have extra “freeboard” height above the water.
• While there are lots of discussions about how to adapt, even including various design competitions, it is much harder to implement change than to talk about it. There are few success stories that exemplify strong adaptation to prevent future flooding.

Sandy was a record storm. After several years of nothing significant, we have now had a series of severe and unusual storms. Recovery and rebuilding should be opportunities to reconsider  and plan for multiple flooding factors to reduce future damage and disruption. Specifically, I believe we should plan for:

1. Major storms on the coast, like Sandy, Harvey, Irma, and Maria.
2. Extreme rainfall, AND the related but distinct runoff, which are becoming common, and expected to increase as the warmer oceans evaporate more.
3. Routine flooding from “king tides” the extreme high tides that follow the lunar / solar cycles and which keeps getting higher due to the final factor, namely
4. Rising sea level — which is now headed to new heights with the melting of Greenland and Antarctica.

It is prudent to assume that in the next 30 years, essentially one building or mortgage cycle, that we should have raised our flood elevations about three feet, at least as a starting point. Where we are creating new infrastructure that is durable and amortized over longer periods, perhaps 50-100 years, we need to anticipate even higher adaptation levels. So in that context I have to conclude that the last five years have been “baby steps” compared to what I would term aggressive adaptation.

Sandy + Sea Level Rise = Think Bigger

Particularly for sea level rise, we have to think much bigger. Sea level this century is now estimated to rise somewhere between two feet and as much as ten. The rate of rise will almost surely accelerate, likely following an exponential or geometric progression, often referred to as compounding rates of growth. It is amazing – like a high rate of compounding interest on a loan. Though global average sea level is now creeping along at less than a half inch a year, the geometric progression shows how it could be more than ten feet this century. Yet it’s too early to tell, partly because of the confusion about how quickly we can slow the warming, or even how much we are committed to work to slow the warming.

We do not have time to waste. While the GOOD progress listed above deserves praise, we have to push ourselves to do better. We have decades, perhaps a half century to adapt to sea level that will likely be MUCH higher than anything experienced in human civilization. We can find lots of reasons to be cautious and to do this slowly. But given the uncertainty and the rapidly changing weather patterns and melting glaciers, this is one case where we are better safe, than sorry.

We are “on the clock”. Five years have elapsed. I know I am impatient, but I do think its time to kick this into a higher gear. We are in a race to rise with the tide… We can do this.