Are NYC’s Beach Towns Ready for The Next Natural Disaster?
As global warming pushes the ocean further inland and brews up violent storms on the coast, New York’s underprivileged coastal residents are gravely underprepared for the rising tide.
The first thing Ruth Fertig noticed when she pulled into the driveway of her Rockaway Beach home on October 30, 2012, was a jellyfish lying on the ground. Even though she lived two blocks from the boardwalk, pieces of it were strewn across her lawn along with mounds of sand.
As she opened the front door of her home, the putrid stench of sewer water hit her nose. Cans of soda floated in her living room, and her basement looked more like an indoor pool. Precious photos and family mementos were nowhere to be found among the gallons and gallons of filthy seawater that filled nearly two floors. In just one day, the 77-year-old’s beloved seaside home of three decades was completely flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
In Fertig’s 45 years as a resident of Rockaway Beach, she had never been so devastated by a disaster. Working as a teacher at Far Rockaway High School, she had noticed the slow erosion as the distance between the boardwalk and beach gradually became shorter. But prior to 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, the previous year’s Hurricane Irene was not nearly as destructive as predicted.
“Ultimately everything on the first floor and basement was just gutted completely: walls, floors, everything,” said Fertig of the damage. “I mean, there was nothing left.”
Fertig heeded the warnings of her neighbors when Hurricane Sandy was announced, waiting until the Giants game had wrapped up on Sunday afternoon before leaving the Rockaways to take refuge at her son’s house in Flushing.
After surveying the damage following the storm, Fertig had no choice but to stay at her son’s house during her home’s restoration, which took six months and $150,000.
Initially, her Allstate insurance was only willing to give her $5,000 for the repairs, but after many negotiations they coughed up $35,000. Her flood insurance covered $100,000, leaving the high school teacher and her husband a bill of $15,000 to pay to repair their home.
Fertig’s husband, a former furniture business owner, suffered a massive stroke at 52 making it difficult for him to walk. His disability only added to the stress of having to relocate to their children’s house during repairs.
Fertig had hoped to get some relief from New York City’s Build It Back program, but gave up after their lengthy and confusing interview process.
“It was just so confusing and ridiculous that I ended up not doing anything with it,” said Fertig. “It was an abomination.” She wasn’t the only one let down by Build It Back — it took eight months after Hurricane Sandy for the program to even begin sending out reimbursement checks, according to Curbed. Even Build It Back’s own creator later dubbed it a “categorical failure.”
While the Fertigs were eventually able to move back into their beloved seaside home thanks to insurance and their children’s support, many New York City residents were not as lucky. The storm resulted in $19 billion in damages, over 300 completely destroyed homes, and 44 lost lives in New York City alone.
Ten years later, the subways are still in recovery from Sandy’s plight. Efforts are currently being made to provide protection for the next natural disaster which look to bolster surge protection and combat sea level rise via flood gates and elevated stone structures. Meanwhile, the city’s residents have been left without a backup plan in the inevitable case of the next devastating storm.
Last September’s Hurricane Ida was a cruel reminder. Video footage taken from the storm shows several feet of water gushing through the subway station. The storm’s deluge of up to three inches of rainfall in one hour left 12 Queens residents who were living in subterranean apartments dead
In a state with the highest income inequality, the wealth gap is only exacerbated by natural disasters. The pandemic only amplified this — twice as many people in poor neighborhoods died from coronavirus than wealthy ones. As climate change contributes to New York City’s ever-changing landscape, wealthy residents across the coastline can afford to move to flood-resistant buildings and repair their homes to remain on their beloved waterfront properties. But lower income residents are left to live in damaged, mold-infested spaces; forced to relocate to higher ground; or in extreme cases, drown in their own homes. Before the next natural disaster barrells down, it’s worth asking if these crises are merely symptoms of a much larger systemic failure to protect all of New York’s beach town residents, not just the ones with money.
Part I
Basil Grigos, a 20-year-old student at New York University and lifelong Bay Ridge resident, first saw the effects of sea level rise during his upbringing. Bay Ridge is elevated from the ocean, but Grigos started to notice in high school that waves would crash onto the land during especially bad storms.
“That never really used to happen when I was younger,” said Grigos. “There’s also a lot of flooding on the highway, which I began to notice more and more throughout high school.”
Dr. Sonali McDermid, a climate scientist and associate professor of environmental studies at NYU, believes that New York City is uniquely impacted by two major effects of climate change: sea level rise and supercharged storms.
“Sea level rise is a slow process that is always in the back of our minds,” said McDermid. “There’s increasing evidence for it intruding on our daily lives.”
Our current understanding of sea level rise is that it is caused by polar ice caps melting and expansion caused by warmer water temperatures. As temperatures continue to rise globally, both of these factors lead to higher sea levels — a little over 100 millimeters since 1993. While this is a gradual process, New York City’s 520 miles of coastline means that more and more of its waterfront land is being covered by water. Not only does this mean shrinking beaches and waterfronts, but sea level rise also makes it more vulnerable to flooding.
“New York is low lying,” said Cortney Worrall, president and CEO of Waterfront Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates for waterfront accessibility across New York and New Jersey,. “There’s also a lot of New York — parts of lower Manhattan, parts of Brooklyn, in lower Queens — that are built on landfill and that’s land that is typically very, very low.”
Sea level rise tends to creep up slowly on NYC’s waterfront, but the second major effect of climate change makes its presence immediately known. Supercharged storms — hurricanes, blizzards, flash floods, and the like — can wreak havoc on the city in a matter of minutes.
While storms have always been a part of the earth’s climate, global warming has exacerbated their effects. Given that there is more liquid water in our oceans due to global warming, these storms become more intense: lasting longer, with more flooding rains.
“Storms that have more rainfall than they would typically have are some of the kind of fast challenges that compounds sea level rise changes, because it tends to lead to heightened storm surges and things like that,” said McDermid.
Aside from these two major effects of climate change, another phenomenon that impacts New York City’s environment is the heat island effect. This refers to the higher temperatures that uniquely impact urban areas, caused by a multitude of factors such as heat absorption and re-emission by the higher quantities of buildings and roads in cities.
“In terms of heat, the density of the urban environment causes extreme heat to occur more often and at higher levels than in other parts of our region that are less urban, and less densely developed,” said Worrall.
The residual impacts of climate change span far beyond the immediate effects of smaller waterfronts and warmer temperatures. One such consequence is power outages during supercharged storms.
“That’s also going to put pressure, for example, on infrastructure like power,” said McDermid. “In New York City, it’s not just about power for buildings, but also power for subway lines, right, and for transportation. So that has a ripple effect into being able to get assistance to people in case of climate driven emergencies.”
Both McDermid and Worral emphasized that the brunt of collateral damage caused by climate change is felt hardest by economically and socially marginalized communities. While wealthier areas such as Battery Park are able to adapt to sea level rise through infrastructure adjustments such as water-resistant materials — using stone instead of wood — and basement pumps to ameliorate flooding, underserved communities do not have access to these technologies.
“What’s important is that sea level rise, at least right now, doesn’t need to mean that people are vulnerable or at risk,” said McDermid. “What I think as to people’s risk, are the level of services and support they get as a community.”
Part II
To combat the effects of climate change, the New York City Department of State — whose waterfront planning team did not respond to multiple requests for comment — has come up with a comprehensive plan of actions. Two of the largest efforts to mitigate flooding and sea level rise impact are already underway: the Rockaways-Atlantic Shorefront project, which includes building and restoring stone structures to combat beach erosion, and the East Side Coastal Resiliency project, which focuses on installing flood gates along Manhattan’s East River Park.
Initially, the plan for the East Side Coastal Resiliency project was communicated successfully when it was first brought to the community’s attention. John Ingram, an Alphabet City resident and member of climate activist group 305NYC, recalls the city’s presentation of the project following Hurricane Sandy.
“They were meeting at all these local churches and found big spaces — they had tables, and they had translators in four or five languages,” said Ingram. “They engaged the public in activities and invited them to design the bridge that was going to go across FDR Drive. I think the attempt was to really bring the community along with the city and to get support for it, and I think they were quite successful.”
However, Ingram was blindsided a few years later when he found out in a newspaper article that the city had decided to change the resiliency plan completely. The new plan involved a complete rehaul of the park which would render the green space useless to the residents for years while efforts were made to build the park higher as flood prevention. While Ingram understood why the original plan was not going to provide enough flood protection, he was disappointed by the city’s lack of communication with the neighborhood.
“The city was presenting the project as being this very aesthetic thing, this beautiful park with all these facilities that the Lower East Side would have which is wonderful,” Ingram said of the plan presented to the community. “But there was no consideration of how a huge project like that, which is going to take eight, nine, even more years to do, was going to be developed. There would be practically nothing left for people to use as a park for a very long period of time.”
Eventually, activist groups reached a settlement with the city to keep at least a third of the park open at any given time. But the lack of clear communication between the city and its residents on climate change adaptations remains an issue.
City Limits climate reporter Liz Donovan, who outlined the waterfront plan’s main points, stressed the importance of making sure that these plans are communicated to the affected communities in accessible ways — making information available to non-English speakers, the elderly, and those who can’t attend neighborhood meetings, to name a few. Waterfront education programs for the city’s youth can also help keep the city’s youth informed and involved in their neighborhood’s future.
Other planned projects outlined in the city’s waterfront plan include retrofitting existing buildings near the water to withstand flood conditions. The Riis Houses, public housing facilities next to the East River Park, are currently being floodproofed by improving the sealing on their sewer structures to prevent flood water from entering the buildings. The city is also installing generators on the buildings so that residents still have electrical power during emergencies.
As far as combatting temperature spikes from the urban heat island effect, Gov. Kathy Hochul recently expanded eligibility for $15 million in cooling assistance such as air conditioning. This would prevent heat-related deaths, which are becoming more common due to global warming.
Donovan commends the city for the amount of effort that went into making sure the plan represented a diverse group of opinions from environmental justice groups and the general public. However, she is concerned about how much of the plan will come to fruition in a timely manner.
“The problem is, it’s just a roadmap — it’s just a plan, it’s not policy,” said Donovan. “It recommends finishing the projects that have been in the works since Sandy, but there’s no actual accountability tied to that.”
Part III
Along with clearly communicating infrastructure plans to each neighborhood, there are many improvements that can be made to the city’s current plans to support socioeconomically disadvantaged residents as they adapt to climate change.
Ashley Fontanilla, a project coordinator at activist group South Bronx Unite, discusses the nuances of educating low-income communities on climate change. “When we’re talking about climate change in particular, I’ve noticed that it’s not the first thing in the mind of the community,” said Fontanilla. “When you’re living in a place that has so many socioeconomic issues, the main issues on their mind are mostly quality of life issues. They need to not have so many barriers to having an enjoyable life. For parents, it’s really hard to get more knowledge when you’re working a full time job.”
To make learning about climate change less burdensome, she recommends that the city ensures that informational fliers are delivered to all residents in multiple languages. Making climate change education an official part of the New York City Public Schools teaching agenda will ensure that the city’s youth are prepared for changes in their environment. Fontanilla adds that the importance of activist groups such as South Bronx Unite is that they provide a bridge between the city and their communities — which is why their funding is so essential to supporting low-income residents throughout climate change.
South Bronx Unite has been instrumental in encouraging the city’s development plans for the Mott Haven-Port Morris Waterfront plan, which will add infrastructure to the South Bronx waterfront. The upcoming waterfront development will not only serve as extra flood protection to the low-lying land and reduce power surges during storms, but will provide much-needed green space and waterfront access to the community.
Brooklyn Paper reporter Jessica Parks believes that the city is critically underprepared for the next natural disaster, referencing the men and women who drowned in basement apartments during Hurricane Ida. She emphasized that there needs to be stricter enforcement of regulations to hold landlords accountable for renting out illegal apartments, and ensuring that their spaces have up-to-code emergency exits.
“People are being taken advantage of,” she said. “In terms of outreach, we need to be able to reach these people and let them know about illegal apartments and illegal fire exits. I think being able to better reach lower income New Yorkers is really important.
Along with proactive solutions to mitigating the effects of flooding and sea level rise, low-income residents also need better access to resources when disaster does strike. This comes in the form of affordable home and health insurance, easy-to-navigate climate aid programs, and equitable buyouts in case moving becomes the only viable option.
McDermid adds that in the case a buyout becomes necessary, the city needs to be offering fair prices in order for New Yorkers to be willing to relocate. If the city provides enough monetary incentive for residents to move further inland before the next storm strikes, it could prevent natural disaster-related deaths.
“We dictate what the worst-case scenario is,” said McDermid. “With Hurricane Sandy, people lost their property and even life in some cases. We’ve started to get a taste of what the worst case scenario looks like.”
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As the scents of saltwater and warm sand remind the Rockaways that summer is approaching, Ruth Fertig’s home near the beach is still standing. It’s a far cry from the sand and seaweed covered wreck following Hurricane Sandy: its stone grey exterior is immaculate, a small tree and bushes soak up the late afternoon sun, and a set of cushioned white wicker chairs on the front porch are just dying to host Fertig and her family for a cup of coffee.
“I love the beach. I like the serenity of a small community. And I like that I have very, very nice neighbors,” said Fertig. “I think as long as there’s not another hurricane, I think things will progress well, and I think people will again rebuild.
A little further east, Basil Grigos hopes to spend the rest of his life in his New York City beach town. “I love Bay Ridge because you don’t get the loudness of Manhattan, but you also get the peaceful experience like you’d get in upstate New York or anywhere outside of the city,” said Grigos. “So it’s kind of like the best of both worlds. I never want to leave Bay Ridge.”
With the shoreline inching further inland and climate change brewing up nasty tropical storms, keeping their seaside oasis may not be possible for many of New York City’s residents — at least not without support from the city.
“I think if something happened again, I would definitely not rebuild — I would sell off my property,” said Fertig. “ As much as I love the ocean and want to be near water, I don’t think I could go through that again.”
Sources:
Ruth Fertig: (347) 804–7191
Basil Grigos: (646) 402–2290
Liz Donovan: liz@citylimits.org
Jessica Parks: jparks@schnepsmedia.com
Ashley Fontanilla: ashley@southbronxunite.org
Anna Kathawala: f4f.nyc@gmail.com
Sonali McDermid: sps246@nyu.edu
Cortney Worrall: cworrall@waterfrontalliance.org
John Ingram: johngingram@gmail.com
New York City Department of City Planning (did not respond): waterfrontplan@pnanning.nyc.gov
“Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World” by John Freeman
