Why Prospects for Resilience for Jamaica Bay?

William D. Solecki, Eric W. Sanderson, John R. Waldman, and Adam S. Parris

New York City woke up to issues of resilience on October 29, 2012. One might have thought that the first twelve years of the twenty-first century would have already made the point. Terrorism in 2001, major street protests in New York City in 2003 and 2011, an electricity blackout in 2003, major heat waves in 2006 and 2008, financial collapse and recession in 2009–2010, and other storms such as Tropical Storm Tammy in 2005 and Hurricane Irene in 2011, all significantly disturbed the everyday life of the city and in some cases put significant pressure on the established order. They were shocks that destroyed physical, social, and economic structures, and afterward required a process of recovery through which structures were rebuilt. The capacity of a system to recover from shocks such as these, and adapt to changing drivers and disturbances, is resilience.

What made October 29, 2012, different was the scope of the damage. That day and night Hurricane Sandy plowed into the coast of New Jersey, affecting the lives directly or indirectly of every one of the 22 million people across the New York City metropolitan region (figure 1-1). Sandy had risen as a tropical storm seven days earlier in the Caribbean, toward the end of the usual Atlantic Ocean hurricane season. The storm tracked north, gaining strength as it made landfall with hurricane-strength winds on Jamaica and then Cuba.

As the storm left land over Cuba, it seemed that it might become disorganized and dissipate, but another weather system moving west to east across North America added energy to Sandy and caused the eye of the storm to pivot toward the north-northeast, aiming at the coasts of New Jersey and New York. By the morning of October 29, Sandy was a Category 2 hurricane and had grown to a tremendous width of 1,150 miles. Although its force had diminished to tropical storm strength (approximately 75-mile-per-hour winds) when the center of Sandy landed at Brigantine, New Jersey, to the south of New York City, its effects were not only atmospheric but also oceanic. Winds drove massive waves against the shore in advance of the storm itself. When Sandy hit the coast, waves were riding on and over the top of both a storm surge and a high tide, itself amplified by the full moon and the proximity of the equinox, when high tides are at their most extreme. Storm surges that night averaged nine feet above mean sea level and in some places exceeded fourteen feet. Rain fell and fell, eventually accumulating over ten inches in some areas. Along the coasts, the deluge worsened flooding on streets already inundated by the sea.

Overnight, Sandy slowly moved inland and began to weaken, cut off from its energy supply in the warm oceanic waters. The storm had resulted in more than 150 deaths and many more injuries (Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, 2013). Houses along the shore were blown over or lifted off their foundation, filled with sand, and soaked. In New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, approximately 380,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. Tens of thousands of people were displaced. Transportation, energy, food, and fuel supplies were all disrupted and would continue so for days afterward. The subways shut down because all subway tunnels were flooded by seawater, making it difficult to get to work, so many people tried to drive, causing massive traffic jams. There was a run on gasoline as rumors spread that there was not enough of it to go around given the damage to shoreline gasoline distribution facilities. New York City's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, decided to call off the New York City Marathon, leaving thousands of tourists wandering around the city in running apparel, gaping at the restaurants and stores closed for lack of power and supply. Total economic damages in the metropolitan region have been estimated at more than $60 billion, including both direct and indirect losses, making Sandy the second costliest hurricane in U.S. history (Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, 2013) after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (figure 1-2).

No one wants to relive the pain and anguish of Hurricane Sandy, and indeed as we write four years later, the hurricane still swirls in the consciousness of New Yorkers and their government leaders. Many parts of the city have rebuilt, some just like they were before, some in ways reflecting the experience of Sandy, and yet other places remain damaged and forlorn. With crisis comes opportunity, and one of the opportunities that Hurricane Sandy brutally unveiled was the chance to seriously think about prospects for resilience. What does it take to make a coastal city like New York resilient? How do we understand disturbances in the context of history and nature, and how do we enhance the ability of people and nature to recover after them?

These are questions that not only New York City is facing but increasingly so are other cities in the United States, such as New Orleans and Miami, and other cities around the globe, such as Amsterdam, Dhaka, and Bangkok. It is in these places that future sea level rise is forcing consideration of a series of questions about the risks and hazards of long-term use and habitation of the coastal zone.

Why Resilience of Jamaica Bay?

This book focuses on the prospects for resilience for an urban watershed where the issues come into unusual focus and clarity: Jamaica Bay (figure 1-3; see color plates). Despite the name, Jamaica Bay is not in the Caribbean, but rather it is a large coastal lagoon on the southeast side of New York City, in the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn with a small portion in Nassau County, a neighboring New York State county. As we will learn in the second part of the book, the Jamaica Bay watershed is at the meeting place between land and sea, serves as a critical wildlife refuge, especially for migratory birds, is home to over two and a half million New Yorkers and a...