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Climate, power, money and sorrow: lessons of Hurricane Harvey.
Through the power of Katrina, Sandy and, now, Harvey, we get a view into how a changing climate may play out in the real world — beyond arguments and abstractions.
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Climate, Power, Money And Sorrow: Lessons Of Hurricane Harvey
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September 6, 20179:56 AM ET
ADAM FRANK
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A pile of debris sits outside a business damaged by floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey on Sept. 5 in Spring, Texas.
David J. Phillip/AP
I get a lot of "climate" hate mail.
Whenever I write a piece on global warming, someone will email to call me a "lie-bra-tard," or something similar, and tell me I should be in jail.
Sometimes I try to engage these folks and see if they might be interested in how the science of climate change works and what it has to tell us. Mostly, they aren't. Mostly, what they really want is to score some points. What they really want is an argument.
That's what climate change and climate science has become after all these years.
It's just another political football getting tossed around on an already crowded field of political game playing. Immigration, health care, Russian hacking — climate change just gets tossed onto that pile. Then everyone watches to see who has the best zingers on the next CNN or Fox News panel.
But in the wake of Hurricane Harvey we can now see what climate change is really about. It was never about clever arguments but, instead, something much more elemental: power, money and human suffering.
We've all endured endless faux public debates over the question "is human-driven climate change happening?" These were never real debates because the scientific question got answered more than a decade ago. But climate denialists held tight to their positions because they did not, or could not, imagine what is first and foremost at play in climate change: power.
We're not talking here about anything as puny as political economic power. No, climate is about something far more terrifying it its capacities: Climate change is about planetary power.
Now let us be clear (and the point of science is to be as clear as possible): There is still uncertainty on how climate change will affect hurricanes. What is clear, however, is that greater warmth means more moisture in the air which means stronger precipitation. And while asking "did this specific event happen because of climate change" is the wrong scientific question, it's all about trends and the movement toward dangerous "never seen before" kinds of rainfall — one that scientists are seeing.
By altering the chemistry of the atmosphere, we've unbalanced forces that are literally astronomical in scale. It's the flow of energy from the sun that we've inadvertently redirected, channeled through the Earth systems of atmosphere and oceans. Even small changes in those systems are enough to unleash events that dwarf our civilization's ability to control or respond. These are events like "never been seen before" explosive rains that transform a city into an inland sea in just a few days.
But civilization will, by definition, have to respond to the sky-spanning forces we've unleashed. That's where money comes in. We've been delaying action on climate change for decades now. A big part of that delay has come because we've been told the costs of averting climate change are too high. But even before the waters have retreated, Hurricane Harvey is looking to be the most expensive disaster in U.S. history. Projected costs may run north of $100 billions. The fighting in Congress has already begun over who will pay for it — or if it will be paid at all.
As never-seen-before weather events are seen more regularly (the National Weather Service had to add more colors to its rainfall map for Harvey), it's now becoming clear that averting climate change will be less expensive than responding to it.
More than anything, though, the images from Hurricane Harvey catapulted us past equating climate change with clever ideological arguments. From the elderly residents in a flooded nursing home to first responders racing in boats across wave-tossed rivers that were interstate highways the day before, we all saw the ultimate reality of climate change as nothing less than concentrated human suffering. It was millions people in the jaws of desperation. And if we turned our eyes to Bangladesh, India and Nepal, we could see millions more at peril.
We've gotten so used to thinking about climate change in the abstract that we've forgotten why exactly anyone should care about it in the first place.
Unbalancing those planetary forces unleashes the Earth's potent and devastating powers. Once engaged, those powers are literally unstoppable by anything we humans have at our disposal. The heavy rains and heat waves (currently the most clear consequence of climate change) bring misery and loss. And after those rains move on and the heat waves abate we will not have the resources — the money — to continually pick up the pieces.
That's the truth about climate change that Harvey lays bare. It's never been about politics or ideology. It's never been about Al Gore or James Inhofe. It's not about arguments on Facebook or zingers on cable news.
Katrina, Sandy and, now, Harvey — with each of these powerful storms we get a view into how a changing climate may play out in the real world beyond arguments and abstractions.
What it's always been about are the truly awesome powers inherent to planets and the real human consequences of altering the balance of those powers. Luckily, there's still time to marshal our own great and creative powers and chart a saner course.
Adam Frank is a co-founder of the 13.7 blog, an astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester, a book author and a self-described "evangelist of science." You can keep up with more of what Adam is thinking on Facebook and Twitter: @adamfrank4
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Spared by Sandy, but still agonizing over what comes next.
Longtime homeowners on the Brooklyn waterfront emerged unscathed from the 2012 hurricane, but needed help to find out how to cope with future storms.
Though they live just a half-mile from the Paerdegat Basin in Brooklyn, George and Laura Fishman were spared the kind of damage that upended their neighbors’ lives during Hurricane Sandy. (There were not, for instance, fish in their basement.)
But that posed a problem of its own.
How, the Fishmans asked themselves, can we prepare for the next one? Should we buy flood insurance? Should we elevate our boiler and water heater? Should we get out altogether?
These are not isolated concerns. Communities across the country are confronting the mounting evidence of climate change, even as the Trump administration has rolled back environmental laws and regulations and dismissed members of an important science panel.
The New York Times is presenting case studies, and an associated glossary, examining tangible measures in and around New York City to make buildings and infrastructure more resilient in the face of floods, surges, high winds and heavy rains.
That effort reaches all the way to a two-story semidetached brick-and-frame house on Avenue M in the Canarsie neighborhood that the Fishmans have owned for 42 years. Canarsie sits on the vast Jamaica Bay. Numerous creeks and basins, like the Paerdegat, penetrate upland from the bay, putting surrounding areas at risk of flooding.
Dr. Fishman, 66, is a professor emerita of history at York College in Jamaica, Queens. Mr. Fishman, 68, is a retired middle school teacher and administrator in Brooklyn and Queens. He loves stained glass. Panels with ruby roses and cardinals alternate in windows around the house with panels showing a striped lighthouse and a striped clown fish.
“We settled here because it was very convenient to our jobs, it was close to where our parents lived, it was less congested and it was close to the water,” Dr. Fishman said. “And George is a kayaker.”
On existing flood maps, the Fishmans’ property is not in a high-risk zone. They did not have to obtain expensive flood insurance to qualify for a mortgage, which they have since paid off.
During Hurricane Sandy in 2012, their house emerged unscathed while basements in surrounding houses were flooded by the Paerdegat Basin. Cars and trees around them were lost to saltwater. Power was out for 48 hours. And the sewer backed up. But the pitch of the Fishmans’ street ensured that the floodwaters only lapped up near their yard.
They cannot, however, keep counting on good luck. Through Neighborhood Housing Services of Brooklyn, a nonprofit, they learned that they qualified for a free home audit, conducted by an engineering firm and a surveying firm, and a free elevation certificate, which is necessary to get an accurate flood insurance quote.
The audit program is run by the nonprofit Center for NYC Neighborhoods. The center maintains a website, FloodHelpNY.org, where city residents can check to see whether they are in a flood zone and eligible for a free audit and certificate, which might otherwise cost $1,800.
Christie Peale, the executive director of the center, said, “There is only so much information you can give people from publicly available data.
“People have to understand the technical specifics of their property in relation to the flood plain,” Ms. Peale said. “Are you above it? Do you have livable spaces below it? Where is the lowest part of your property that intersects with the flood plain? We really don’t want folks to put their heads in the sand and pretend this isn’t an issue.”
Financing for the $7.5 million audit program comes through the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wanted to “give storm-impacted communities, like Canarsie, the opportunity to program federal recovery dollars to meet their unique needs,” Catie Marshall, a spokeswoman for the office, said.
The program is “now serving hundreds of homeowners like the Fishmans,” she added.
On Jan. 6, the Fishmans were visited by Michael Villanueva, of the Dewberry engineering firm, and Joseph Davidson, a survey technician with Gayron de Bruin.
Mr. Davidson used a Ziplevel altimeter to determine the elevation, in relation to mean sea level, of various parts of the house — most critically the basement floor.
The altimeter has a hand-held measurement module tethered by a 100-foot cord to a small base unit. Mr. Davidson entered a reference elevation on the module (in this case, mean sea level) and then took readings by moving the module from one spot to the next.
“The changes in vertical pressure of a liquid sealed in the pressurized cord indicates to the module where it is in vertical relation to a preset reference level,” said Dennis Vories, the electrical engineer who invented and designed the device.
For example, when Mr. Davidson placed the module on the basement floor, the display read “06.03 FT,” meaning that it was 6.03 feet above mean sea level.
Mean sea level differs from the National Geodetic Vertical Datum, the benchmark that the Federal Emergency Management Agency used on the current, interim flood insurance map. Back at the office, Mr. Davidson ran the data he had collected through custom software. It made a technical correction that yielded a certified elevation of 7.1 feet.
That happens to be around three feet below the base flood elevation for the area, meaning that the Fishmans’ basement could be under three feet of water during a 100-year flood.
On the interim map, however, the Fishmans’ house is not within the high-risk 100-year flood plain. But the city expects to complete new insurance maps in three to five years, working with FEMA. Conceivably, the boundaries of the 100-year flood plain could be redrawn to include the Fishmans’ house. If so, it would formally be regarded as high risk.
The preceding paragraphs only hint at the nearly impenetrable complexity of flood risk assessment. It’s easy to see why homeowners need all the technical help they can get.
On May 1, the Fishmans sat down with Elizabeth Malone and Nadine Carpenter of Neighborhood Housing Services, who helped them interpret the elevation certificate.
“It was recommended that we seal the basement floor,” Dr. Fishman said. “We are seriously considering this. But we are not going to raise our ‘mechanicals’ by moving them to the first floor. The engineer’s report indicated that this would cost between $10,000 and $15,000.”
“Because of our location and the fact that we do not have a mortgage, we are not required to purchase flood insurance,” she said in an email. “But it might be a good idea since now we qualify for a ‘preferred rate’ policy. The premiums are relatively low, and if we sell our home, this lower base rate will be transferred to the new owner.”
Sell their home? Where would they rather be than in Canarsie?
“We wanted to live near the water because it’s so beautiful,” Dr. Fishman said. “It’s a double-edged sword.”
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NJ Audubon undertakes $470G study of climate change impact on wetlands.
Man-made diked wetland habitats with water control structures, also known as impoundments, are vulnerable to sea level rise and extreme weather.
Birders are very familiar with the “pools” along the Wildlife Drive of Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, renowned for their abundance of waterfowl, shorebirds, and other water birds. Within the impoundments, 239 bird species have been reported to eBird.org, including impressive high counts of shorebirds and waterfowl. It all enjoys plenty of tourism.
But there is a nagging problem: These man-made diked wetland habitats with water control structures, also known as impoundments, are vulnerable to sea level rise and extreme weather. Through a $470,000 federal grant, Bernardsville-based New Jersey Audubon is studying the importance of these impoundments that can be managed through manipulation of water levels.
This refuge is just one of 170 coastal impoundments stretching from Massachusetts to Virginia that New Jersey Audubon is studying as part of a three-year project to assess the vulnerability of these ponds to sea level rise in this era of climate change.
Impoundments are often drained in the spring to expose mudflats for migrating shorebirds, and then raised in the fall to provide open water for ducks and other water birds through the winter. Researchers are identifying which impoundments are critical for supporting wildlife habitat and for serving the human population.
Their value to birds is apparent to anyone who has watched tens of thousands of shorebirds roosting and feeding in the impoundments of Heislerville WMA in southern New Jersey, or to the hundreds of thousands of annual visitors to the wildlife drives and trails at Brigantine’s wildlife refuge.
“With sea level rise, some of these impoundments can and ultimately need to be saved, others can’t,” said Nellie Tsipoura, senior research scientist and director of Citizen Science for New Jersey Audubon in a news release. “This is a really exciting project and a novel regional approach for more focused efforts to reduce climate vulnerability to human communities while enhancing ecosystem functioning and value.”
“The Coastal Impoundment Vulnerability and Resilience Project” is funded by the U.S. Department of the Interior via the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. New Jersey Audubon and its partners are mapping and cataloging all state, federal, and privately-owned coastal impoundments in the study area. The team, which includes National Wildlife Federation, Conservation Management Institute of Virginia Tech, Princeton Hydro, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is looking at 45 clusters of impoundments, collectively numbered at 170.
The project has five objectives:
Develop a comprehensive GIS catalog of coastal impoundments from Virginia to Massachusetts, including location, size, elevation, proximity to human communities, and hydrological features
Assess societal importance, ecological value, and climate vulnerability
Prioritize impoundments and focus on how they can be saved through climate-smart management, restoration, and conservation
Educate local managers and stakeholders on the issues and potential solutions
Get youth involved.
“Superstorm Sandy was a powerful reminder in 2012 that, in addition to being valuable, these coastal impoundments are also extremely vulnerable,” said Eric Stiles, president and CEO of New Jersey Audubon. “Damaging and expensive breaches to embankments occurred at numerous impoundments in the path of the storm, such as in Brigantine and the Meadowlands. Ongoing sea level rise, especially at the accelerating rates predicted through climate change, will greatly compound these threats. That’s why this study is so vital.”
Tsipoura said New Jersey Audubon and partners will develop a ranking of impoundments based on metrics related to their ecological value, importance to human populations and potential for maintaining their structural integrity. The results of analysis and prioritization can serve as the basis to develop management plans and make cost benefit decisions about the long-term management of the sites, she said.
New Jersey Audubon said it expects the work to be completed by Oct. 15. Visit www.njaudubon.org.
Staff Writer Bob Makin: 732-565-7319; bmakin@gannett.com
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The Jersey Shore's best weapon against beach erosion? Tiny wisps of grass.
Each spring, small armies of volunteers fan out across the Jersey Shore’s beaches armed with what may be the best defense against such ferocious foes as Hurricane Sandy and Nor’easters: tiny wisps of grass.
Each spring, small armies of volunteers fan out across the Jersey Shore’s beaches armed with what may be the best defense against beach erosion, often caused by such ferocious foes as Hurricane Sandy and Nor’easters: tiny wisps of grass.
But the volunteers' immediate goal is more pastoral: to plant thousands of American beach grass plants in a matter of hours upon some of the miles of dunes that line the state’s 127-mile coastline.
Like similar events planned up and down the shore in the coming weeks, which get the public involved in the work of digging a six- to eight-inch-deep hole in the sand and then inserting the rooted stems or “culms,” more than 100 volunteers converged on Island Beach State Park in Berkeley Township, Ocean County, for three hours on Saturday to plant 30,000 of the American beach grass plants in specific dune areas of the coastal park.
“This kind of work is so critical to growing and preserving the dune system,” said Bianca Charbonneau, a University of Pennsylvania doctoral candidate who has spent the five years since Hurricane Sandy studying dune grass and its effects helping preserve beaches - specifically, those at Island Beach State Park.
Dozens of beach towns that line New Jersey’s Atlantic shoreline mostly have engineered dune systems that are only semi-contiguous and range in length from a few blocks to a couple of miles.
But Island Beach State Park provides one of the best examples of the contiguous natural dune system that once lined the state’s entire Atlantic coast. Stretching for more than 10 miles, the dunes are part of the largest reserve of undeveloped barrier island remaining in New Jersey, and one of the largest in the United States. Nearly a million people a year visit the park to enjoy its bathing beaches, fishing areas and hiking trails.
For her study, which was published in January by the Journal of Applied Ecology, Charbonneau collaborated with four graduate students from universities in the region. The thesis looks at how dunes respond to storms and the role of plants in stabilizing them. She wanted to know whether dunes vary in resistance to erosion based on what plant species may be stabilizing the forefront area of the dune.
“In general we know that plant roots are integral for holding a dune together and that leaves of the plants provide surface drag when you have wash over from a storm. But what we didn’t know is whether there were specific species differences in the amount of erosion control due to differences in morphology and density,” Charbonneau said.
In the immediate aftermath of Sandy, Charbonneau found - to her surprise - that an invasive species of beach grass called Carex kobomugi, or Asiatic sand sedge, that park managers had been trying to eradicate at Island Beach for decades seemed to better hold the dunes together. Across the park, approximately three meters more dune was lost in native grass stands compared with areas with the invasive species, Charbonneau said.
Though it’s highly unlikely that the state Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the environmental management of the park, would ever reverse its long-standing policy of not introducing invasive nonindigenous species to Island Beach and other areas, Charbonneau’s findings could help in determining future species management at the park, officials said.
And while removal of invasive species such as the Asiatic sand sedge was attempted in the past, the park isn’t currently actively removing it, said Caryn Shinske, a spokeswoman for the DEP.
In the meantime, Shinske said that the organizations Friends of Island Beach State Park and Barnegat Bay Partnership, which annually run the dune grass-planting event, purchased the plants for an undisclosed amount from a grower in Cape May and will stick with planting the American beach grass - or Ammophila breviligulata. Grown in bunches, it is a long, narrow, leafy variety that grows two to three feet high. It has a spike-like seed head that is about 10 inches long and appears in late July or August.
As the beach grass grows, its roots - called rhizomes - form a weave within the sand which in turn forms a core for the dune. The blades of the grass on top of the surface also act to trap windblown sand, allowing the dune to retain the sand and grow naturally.
“Dune grasses are vital to protecting the island because they hold the dunes together with their web-like root systems,” said Jen Clayton, the park’s manager. “The park has been concentrating on fortifying vulnerable areas around the numerous paths to the beach, to keep public access open without compromising dune stability.”
Farther south on the shore in Avalon, Cape May County, so necessary are the volunteers who show up to plant dune grass for that town’s annual planting day on April 1 that they will get a free lunch, according to borough administrator Scott Wahl.
“The dune grass plantings are not only valuable from an ecology and resiliency standpoint, they are also important for education,” said Wahl. “Each year, Avalon receives assistance from student organizations, scouting groups, and other volunteer organizations who have fun planting the dune grass but also learn about the fragile ecosystem in the dune and how dune grass benefits nature."
Avalon has one of the few maritime forests remaining on the East Coast in its dune system, which includes a freshwater pond and a high dune area that is taller than a five-story building. Along with its beach access paths, the town has also created a dune and beach trail within the forest to allow for greater education opportunities and “appreciation” of the dunes, Wahl said.
“The dune grass planting events are not possible without the assistance of our volunteers. We plant thousands,” Wahl said, “... which would be a monumental task for our public works department. We hold these efforts twice annually and they result in pronounced environmental and resiliency impact on the borough.”
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Investing in dunes is an investment in New Jersey's future.
In the era of global climate change, monster storms like Sandy could become more commonplace, and unpredictable.
NorthJersey Published 5:48 p.m. ET March 22, 2017 | Updated 10 hours ago
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(Photo: DANIELLE PARHIZKARAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
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Roughly 4½ years after Superstorm Sandy struck the Jersey Shore and wreaked havoc across the state, the rebuilding and rehabilitation continue. Last week came the encouraging news that the long-awaited beach replenishment of Ortley Beach, one of the most devastated areas during the storm, would be starting soon.
As Jean Mikle of the Asbury Park Press reported, the Army Corps of Engineers’ $128 million dune restoration project will be undertaken initially in mid-April, with Cranford contractor Weeks Marine pumping sand. The project will include beach expansion and dune construction from the Manasquan to Barnegat inlets.
Shortly thereafter, Weeks Marine will also begin work on the Absecon Island beach, as well as the Absecon Island dune construction project. Work on other beaches in northern Ocean County will take place in the summer and into early next year.
The replenishment project at Ortley Beach, in particular, can be seen as an emotional milestone in the state’s restoration following that harrowing night of Oct. 29, 2012, when Sandy came ashore and the area sustained such catastrophic damage that residents have dubbed the area “ground zero” of the storm’s destruction.
Bob Martin, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection, said that at the time Sandy came ashore, Ortley Beach did not have a “properly engineered beach” or “dune system.” He said the start of the two projects “fulfills the Christie administration’s commitment of building a state-wide system of engineered beaches that meets Army Corps engineering standards.”
Gov. Chris Christie received universally high marks for his everyday presence and on-the-ground coordination in the hardest hit areas of the storm in the days and weeks immediately after Sandy, but his determined efforts to build up the beaches and dunes has also been commendable. Christie realizes, like many New Jerseyans, that the Jersey Shore is the state’s great tourism gem and economic generator.
Making sure all the shorelines up and down the coast are fully prepared for the next big storm has always been the responsible, thoughtful approach post-Sandy, even if some residents in some shore towns have taken issue with the philosophy.
At Ortley Beach, the question of a fuller beach and sturdier dunes has never been in question since the storm. Toms River has spent $7.9 million since Sandy to dump sand on beaches in Ortley and the township’s northern barrier islands. Toms River has also received $1.75 million in DEP grants to help pay for the sand.
Paul Jeffrey, president of the Ortley Beach Voters and Taxpayers Association, was thrilled to hear the news of the Ortley Beach project. Jeffrey’s group has lobbied hard for the restoration.
“It’s going to help people sleep at night,” Jeffrey said of the replenishment, noting that residents whose homes were destroyed or damaged by Sandy have lived in fear of each nor’easter or tropical storm since 2012.
In the era of global climate change, monster storms like Sandy could become more commonplace, and unpredictable. While the state can’t keep such weather systems from forming, or from heading for the Jersey coast, the state must continue to do all it can to replenish and build up its shoreline to limit the amount of damage and destruction.
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