How New York Infrastructure Adapts to Climate Shifts

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Derek Ku

To: Professor MacBride
From: Derek Ku
Date: 2/13/13
Re: Infrastructure of New York City.

As natural disasters become more frequent, scientists are attributing these occurrences to drastically rising temperatures and sea levels. New Yorkers are investing in infrastructure and technologies that will prevent and mitigate climate change. I will find relevant data and charts by looking through scholarly and news articles regarding the damages inflicted upon New York City during natural disasters related to the changing climate. I will be analyzing climate trends, water levels, and temperatures to determine which problems to tackle first.

I’m really fascinated by New York City infrastructure: New York City is a city of tunnels. When Hurricane Sandy hit New York City, we were affected by the floodwater. The water affected the transit system and damaged the water and electric infrastructure leaving Lower Manhattan stranded without any power nor clean water. For example, some of the solutions for clean water sources in New York City was having the subways creating inflatable plugs filled with 35,000 gallons of water and preserving the Croton and Catskill/Delaware Watersheds. Tracking environment trends will allow New York to analyze and prioritize its next actions and its consequence.

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-moss/new-york-drinking-water_b_2064588.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/03/hurricane-sandy-subway-plug_n_2067524.html

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2 Responses to How New York Infrastructure Adapts to Climate Shifts

  1. Samantha MacBride says:
    February 16, 2013 at 11:13 am

    Hi Derek

    This is a good start, but it is at the moment too broad. You should focus on one natural disaster (probably Sandy) and one type of infrastructure (either subway tunnels or the electrical system). One idea might be to focus on the 14th Street Con Ed plant that went down during Sandy.

    Once you have specialized and focused, let me know and we can talk about next steps.
    SM

  2. Derek Ku says:
    February 19, 2013 at 1:00 pm

    I will be discussing how New Yorkers handle power outages:

    How do we get power back after a power outage in disaster scenarios? For example, during Hurricane Sandy, Aug 2003 blackout, what steps did they take to return power back to the city.

    Which areas affected the worst and why? Which areas got priority?

    Did we determine the order of operations? Social class? population density? danger level?

    What were the root of the causes we were trying to fix?

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