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Natural Barriers Promote Coastal Resilience, Reduce Costs

WetlandsNEW YORK—Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy had devastating impacts on the northeast coastline, debilitating parts of New York and New Jersey. While also in the path of the storms, Delaware saw minimal impact, which the state’s former head of natural resources and environmental control, Colin O’Mara, attributed to its conservation efforts.

Now president and chief executive officer of the National Wildlife Federation, O’Mara spoke at the New York Recovery and Resilience Leadership Forum here June 2, explaining that the state had been building up natural barriers and testing its resilience with various resources.

“During the storm we were checking sandbags and making sure systems were in place and I was wondering if these systems were going to hold,” he said. “What we found was that the system did work.

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” He noted, “One of the reasons you haven’t heard much about what happened in Delaware, compared to New Jersey and New York, is the state’s investments in wetlands, living shoreline projects and oyster beds. These natural systems can absorb the shock of crashing waves and absorb water.”

A living shoreline is a habitat-friendly alternative to rip rap, bulkhead or stone revetments, creating wetland habitat that supports blue crabs, oysters, fish, birds and plants. They can also stop erosion, increase water quality and protect the shoreline from erosion, according to the state of Delaware’s website.

A number of municipalities across the country are making significant advances in natural infrastructure, O’Mara said, “and you are not seeing big taxpayer bailouts of those communities because these systems work.”

At the same time, he noted, many areas do not encourage these types of investments. “In fact, there are a number of policies that are actually putting people in harm’s way,” he said. “We’ve been trying to think through how to have traditional market forces work to the advantage of resilience, instead of having a massive bailout after an event, which is a liability to the taxpayer.

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Conversations about mitigating with natural resources, however, often get nowhere because people believe their insurance programs will bail them out. “Because of government programs, people are actually paying so much less than the insurance value they are receiving, that natural resources as a solution will lose,” O’Mara said. As a result, “All of a sudden that coast seems more developable because the landowner developing it isn’t actually bearing the cost.

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” The real problem is that, after the money has been made and a homeowner is living in the house, the risk is still there. “So you’ve privatized the problem, but you have socialized all of the risk,” he said.

Instead, O’Mara believes it is critical that information about the real costs of destroying a dune, along with the protections it brings be available. “This isn’t an easy conversation, but it is actually an area of commonality,” he said. “Whether you want to reduce government spending, reduce liability or foster more private sector activity, this is an area that shouldn’t be partisan at all.”

Projects of this nature are currently in the works in New York City; Cape May, New Jersey; and Boston, Massachusetts. Such spending on the front end produces much higher savings in the long run, O’Mara said, noting that putting natural resources to work can lower insurance rates and generate private sector involvement.

“We can do things a lot smarter and be a lot safer than we are right now,” O’Mara said. “This should be as bipartisan as anything we do in this country. The economics make sense, the science makes sense and the social science makes sense.” After all, at the end of the day, “people just want to be safe,” he said.

The Elusive NYC Hurricane

Well, maybe it’s not so elusive after all.

All estimates have the projected path of Hurricane Irene heading straight for the most populated city in the nation. Just this morning, AccuWeather.com‘s Senior Meteorologist Kristina Pydynowski, predicted that the storm “is now on a path that could take it dangerously close to, if not over, the mid-Atlantic coastline and New York City on Sunday, posing a serious danger to millions of people.”

Following the almost-imminent brush with the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the storm will come extremely close to or directly over New York City. In preparation, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection is lowering the water level in some of its upstate reservoirs to make room for storm runoff while Mayor Bloomberg is urging residents to prepare for the worst. (Good risk management, Mike B!).

As The Wall Street Journal reports:

The latest European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts model shows a direct landfall on New York City of a Category 2 Irene, an outcome that would be likely to push a significant storm surge up the Hudson River and raise the level of New York Harbor by 10 to 15 feet. This would truly be a historic blow to the city should it come to pass.

Though it is necessary to prepare for the worst when it comes to any natural disaster, we must keep in mind that forecast error for hurricane projections this far in advance averages about 150 to 200 miles.

The NYC Office of Emergency Management lists 1999’s Tropical Storm Floyd as the last storm affect the area. It brought flash flooding that caused NYC schools to close for the first time since 1996 and led the city to open emergency storm shelters. But the deadliest and most destructive hurricane to hit NYC was the “Long Island Express” in 1938. The category 3 hurricane crossed over Long Island and into New England, killing nearly 200 people — 10 of those in NYC. The storm knocked out power in all areas above 59th street and in all areas of the Bronx.

Here’s is an amazing (and somewhat horrifying if you live in NYC as most of our staff does) video by the History Channel of what could happen if the 1938 hurricane made landfall here today.

East Coast Has Time to Prepare for Hurricane Irene, “But We Don’t Have Forever.” Start Getting Ready.

Hurricane Irene battered the Caribbean and may now have its sights set on the Mid-Atlantic. It’s still to early to accurately forecast the storms trajectory, but FEMA is urging the entire East Coast to prepare.

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After lashing the Turks and Caicos islands and the Bahamas, Irene is projected to skirt Florida and instead hit the Carolina coast by the weekend, but Craig Fugate, the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, said Irene’s exact path cannot be predicted this far out.

The storm, he said, will affect a large area.

“People think hurricanes are a Southern thing but people in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast need to take Irene seriously,” Fugate said.

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“We have a lot of time for people to get ready but we don’t have forever.”

Last year around this time, there was much made of the damage Hurricane Earl might do well north of the traditional hurricane-exposed region of the country. Then it came and went without any fury to speak of.

That non-event will likely cloud the minds of some who will expect the same result. Hopefully, nothing disastrous will happen. But eventually a storm will make it up to the Northeast. We don’t know when. And that’s why you have to prepare for each as if it may.

Here’s a good article on how to keep track of the storm’s path.