CHAPTER 1

Minus One HundredTwenty-Two Metersand Climbing

On October 28, 2012, Hurricane Sandy, the largest Atlantic hurricaneon record, came ashore in New Jersey. Sandy's assault and sea surgebrought the ocean into neighborhoods and houses, inundated parkinglots and tunnels, turned parks into lakes. When it was all over and thewater receded, a huge swath of the Northeast American coast lookedlike a battered moonscape. Only Hurricane Katrina, which devastatedNew Orleans in 2005, was more costly. Katrina, with its gigantic seasurge, had been a wake-up call for people living on low-lying coasts, butthe disaster soon receded from the public consciousness. Sandy struck inthe heart of the densely populated Northeastern Corridor of the UnitedStates seven years later and impacted the lives of millions of people.The storm was an epochal demonstration of the power of an attackingocean to destroy and kill in a world where tens of millions of people liveon coastlines close to sea level. This time, people really sat up and tooknotice in the face of an extreme weather event of a type likely to be morecommonplace in a warmer future. As this book goes to press, a seriousdebate about rising sea levels and the hazards they pose for humanitymay have finally begun—but perhaps not.

Sandy developed out of a tropical depression south of Kingston, Jamaica,on October 22. Two days later, it passed over Jamaica, then overCuba and Haiti, killing seventy-one people, before traversing the Bahamas.Come October 28, Sandy strengthened again, eventually makinglandfall about 8 kilometers southwest of Atlantic City, New Jersey,with winds of 150 kilometers an hour. By then, Sandy was not only anunusually large hurricane but also a hybrid storm. A strong Arctic airpattern to the north forced Sandy to take a sharp left into the heavypopulated Northeast when normally it would have veered into the openAtlantic and dissipated there. The blend produced a super storm with awind diameter of 1,850 kilometers, said to be the largest since 1888,when far fewer people lived along the coast and in New York. Unfortunately,the tempest also arrived at a full moon with its astronomical hightides. Sandy was only a Category 1 hurricane, but it triggered a majornatural disaster partly because it descended on a densely populatedseaboard where thousands of houses and other property lie within afew meters of sea level. Imagine the destruction a Category 5 stormwould have wrought—something that could happen in the future.

The scale of destruction was mind-boggling. Sandy brought torrentialdownpours, heavy snowfall, and exceptionally high winds to anarea of the eastern United States larger than Europe. Over one hundredpeople died in the affected states, forty of them in New York City. Thestorm cut off electricity for days for over 4.8 million customers in 15states and the District of Columbia, 1,514,147 of them in New Yorkalone. Most destructive of all, a powerful, record-breaking 4.26-metersea surge swept into New York Harbor on the evening of October 29.The rising waters inundated streets, tunnels, and subways in Lower Manhattan,Staten Island, and elsewhere. Fires caused by electrical explosionsand downed power wires destroyed homes and businesses, over onehundred residences in the Breezy Point area of Queens alone. Even theGround Zero construction site was flooded. Fortunately, the authoritieshad advance warning. In advance of the storm, all public transit systemswere shut down, ferry ser vices were suspended, and airports closed untilit was safe to fly. All major bridges and tunnels into the city were closed.The New York Stock Exchange shut down for two days. Initial recoverywas slow, with shortages of gasoline causing long lines. Rapid transitsystems slowly restored ser vice, but the damage caused by the stormsurge in lower Manhattan delayed reopening of critical links for days.

The New Jersey Shore, an iconic vacation area in the Northeast, sufferedworst of all. For almost 150 years, people from hot, crowded citieshave flocked to the Shore to lie on its beaches, families often going to thesame place for generations. They eat ice cream and pizza, play in arcadesonce used by their grandparents, drink in bars, and go to church.The Shore could be a seedy place, fraught with racial tensions, andsometimes crime and violence, but there was always something foreverybody, be they a wealthy resident of a mansion, a contestant in a MissAmerica pageant, a reality TV actor, a skinny-dipper, or a musician.Bruce Springsteen grew up along the Shore and his second album featuredthe song "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)," an ode to a girl ofthat name and the Shore. "Sandy, the aurora is rising behind us; the pierlights our carnival life forever," he sang. The words have taken on newmeaning since the hurricane came.

Fortunately, the residents were warned in advance of the storm. Theywere advised to evacuate their homes as early as October 26. Two dayslater, the order became mandatory. New Jersey...