One of the most extreme examples highlighted in the New York State Comptroller’s recent report on the increase of severe weather, was the October 29, 2012 landfall of Hurricane Sandy.
Sandy is an example of how the impacts of climate change act as “threat magnifiers,” and in the case of Sandy produce unprecedented damage to infrastructure and economic disruption.
In addition to weather events of unprecedented magnitude, there is also strong evidence that this threat magnification effect is increasing the destructiveness of more commonly experienced weather.
Then Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a statewide state of emergency and asked for a pre-disaster declaration on October 26, which President Barrack Obama signed later that day.
After causing damage to the islands of Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas, Sandy made landfall as a post-tropical cyclone near Brigantine, New Jersey on the evening of October 29, 2012.
It was called “Superstorm Sandy” as it was expected to merge with a storm front a few days before Halloween.
When it came ashore the storm had a sustained wind speed of approximately 80 miles per hour and a barometric pressure of 945 millibars, one of the lowest readings ever recorded north of North Carolina in the U.S.
Sandy’s wind field measured 870 nautical miles (1,001.18 miles) and drove a gigantic storm surge with damaging waves on shore in New Jersey, New York City, Long Island and Connecticut.
The highest storm surge measured in New York was at Kings Point with 12.65 feet above normal tide levels while surge levels of 9.56 feet and 9.4 feet were measured at Bergen Point West Reach on Staten Island and the Battery respectively.
This storm surge arrived on top of an astronomical high tide which magnified its impact resulting in storm tides of 14.5 feet in Staten Island and 14.3 feet in Kings Park.
Rainfall also contributed to flooding with inundations above ground level reaching up to 9 feet in Staten Island and Manhattan, up to 6 feet in Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island, up to 5 feet in the Hudson River Valley and up to 4 feet in the Bronx and Westchester County.
The storm caused extensive damage to infrastructure, flooding 8 MTA tunnels and destroying the South Ferry-Whitehall Street subway station. It took several weeks to restore subway service between Manhattan and Brooklyn.
An estimated 305,000 homes were destroyed in New York State, with approximately 100,000 homes damaged or destroyed on Long Island. On Staten Island blocks of homes were destroyed in Midland, New Dorp and Oakland Beach.
Extensive damage to the electric grid, as well as to rail, road and marine infrastructure was widespread throughout the affected region. In Nassau County the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant was flooded by storm surge and extensively damaged.
As many as 8.6 million electric customers lost service throughout the U.S. including more than 1 million LIPA customers. Power was still being restored to LIPA customers more than two weeks after the storm and in some areas of Coney Island power was not restored until December.
Approximately 10,000 customers in Nassau County could not have power restored due to structural damage. The power outages shut down refueling stations, with stations that still had electric service, or backup power quickly running out of fuel, resulting in gasoline rationing.
Over its course, Sandy killed 147 people, including 48 in New York State. Most of the deaths in New York were due to storm surge, but falling trees also caused some deaths. Total damage in New York State is estimated at $32.8 billion.
This essay was drawn from Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli’s October 225 report Severe Weather Events and Resiliency in New York State.
Photos, from above: A wave hits near the George Washington Bridge during Hurricane Sandy; and a White House conference with FEMA and Department of Homeland Security in preparation for arrival of the hurricane (Pete Souza- White House Photo).
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