Entrance to New York Harbor - Hurricane Sandy

Entrance to New York Harbor in Hurricane Sandy
Wave Height 32.5 feet!
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The 2011 Report That Predicted New York's Subway Flooding Disaster - Commute - The Atlantic Cities

The 2011 Report That Predicted New York's Subway Flooding Disaster - Commute - The Atlantic Cities: "Last fall, as part of a massive report on climate change in New York, a research team led by Klaus Jacob of Columbia University drafted a case study that estimated the effects of a 100-year storm on the city's transportation infrastructure. Considering MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota’s comments today that Hurricane Sandy's impact on the subway was "worse than the worst case scenario," it seems pretty safe to put Sandy in the 100-year category. In that case, assuming the rest of the report holds true, the subway system could be looking at a recovery time of several weeks, with residual effects lasting for months and years.

The researchers modeled a potential 100-year storm that consisted of either a category 1 or 2 hurricane hitting nearby, or a severe nor’easter that coincided with high tide. (As we know now, Sandy was a hybrid of all three events.) The models predicted complete flooding of several tunnels after such an event, including all the tunnels in the East River:"

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Manhattan's flooded zone is landfill

Most of Sandy-flooded lower Manhattan is landfill. There is a lot more Manhattan than there used to be. The Battery was just that - and it was on two near-shore islands. The entire area west of the World Trade Center is recent fill - much of it from the No. 3 water tunnel still being excavated. 

Compare the Manhattan evacuation map to a 1776 map of the island before the filling started. Basically - if it is red it is fill.   The eastern line of Zone A along the Hudson River runs along Greenwich Street on the west, which was at the waterfront in 1776. The old slips on the East River extend inland to Queen Street, now Pearl Street, which is near where Zone A runs along the East River.
Click through HERE for an interactive Google map in the TPM post which is the source of this post.

City Island YC Dock wrecked - again

City Island Y.C. reports that for the second year in a row (last year it was Irene) our pier has been destroyed:

While CIYC indeed took a hit, we stand luckier than some of our neighbors. Swamped buildings, boats floating or blowing off their stands, boats and docks simply floating away, fires, and on - all within a mile of us. The volume and power of churning sea pushed into Eastchester Bay by relentless storm winds, and half-way up the sides of the Clubhouse, was astonishing and overwhelming in every sense of those words. Around the time of C.I. low tide Monday evening, 6:46 PM, King's Point reported water levels 12.50 feet above the predicted, LaGuardia Airport recorded gusts of 71 mph, and NOAA recorded wave heights of 6 to 9 feet in western Long Island Sound.

Joyce Mulcahy's blog City Island Sailing has shots of the damage.  The wrecked docks below are at our club City Island Y.C.
CIYC After Sandy (click to expand images and for slideshow)


CIYC Before Sandy

CIYC After Irene


After Sandy 
On the east side of the island - by the cemetery - just north of Barron's Boatyard

An Oyster in the Storm - NYTimes.com

An Oyster in the Storm - NYTimes.com:

by Paul Greenberg
"DOWN here at the end of Manhattan, on the border between evacuation zones B and C, I’m prepared, mostly. My bathtub is full of water, as is every container I own. My flashlights are battery-ed up, the pantry is crammed with canned goods and I even roasted a pork shoulder that I plan to gnaw on in the darkness if ConEd shuts down the power.

But as I confidently tick off all the things that Governor Andrew M. Cuomo recommends for my defense as Hurricane Sandy bears down on me, I find I’m desperately missing one thing.

I wish I had some oysters.

I’m not talking about oysters to eat — although a dozen would be nice to go with that leftover bottle of Champagne that I really should drink if the fridge goes off. I’m talking about the oysters that once protected New Yorkers from storm surges, a bivalve population that numbered in the trillions and that played a critical role in stabilizing the shoreline from Washington to Boston."
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Sailor Hopes to Cruise Globe in 10-Foot Boat - WSJ.com

Sven Irvind is at it again.  After sailing across the Atlantic in a teacup of a boat, he now wants to go around the world, single-handed, non-stop (at least no docking).  I don't think I could live on sardines and granola that long.  Doesn't he need salad?  And Mackerel for a treat? Oy vey.

Sailor Hopes to Cruise Globe in 10-Foot Boat - WSJ.com:


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Blue Fin Whale - Pescadotes

a new image from PESCADOTES



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Harlem River drive

We set out for Hell Gate - and stripers and bluefish.  Fed a couple of eels to the prey but hooked none.  Oh well.  A beautiful evening and a ride down the Harlem River whose beautiful bridges are among the architectural gems of New York. (click pix to enlarge and for slide show)

Amtrak RR bridge at Spuyten Duyvil

Henry Hudson bridge in background

Spuyten DuyviL bridge

crew practice

Fordham Road bridge at 207 Street

First Brooklyn Nets game

Went to my first Brooklyn Nets game with Michael at the new Barclay's Arena.  Great venue, good game.  Though Brooklyn lost to the 76'ers (106-96 - no DeeFense), it felt great to be cheering for Brooklyn like I did when I was a kid.

For New York Cross-Country Runners, a Century-Old Proving Ground In a Bronx Park, a Century of Testing Runners’ Speed and Spirit - NYTimes.com

Across the flats in a herd of two hundred, bunched up at the bottle neck entrance to the dusty cow path, around the bend, across the Henry Hudson Parkway footbridge, up freshman hill, then a precarious, twisting run down the rutted path, back across the bridge, then gasping the last 3/8 mile to the finish line. Van Cortland Park has been the scene of cross country running for New York high schoolers for 100 years. Marc Bloom - a track coach remembers his first "terrible experience" on the two and a half mile course which he finished in 21 minutes. I don't know what my personal best was. Was it 15:30? Hmm. I know I ran a 5:25 mile. Could I have done 2.5 at almost 6 minutes per mile? Maybe I dreamed of it. I know that I ran my heart out, feeling like my lungs were bleeding at the end of the race. - GWC
For New York Cross-Country Runners, a Century-Old Proving Ground In a Bronx Park, a Century of Testing Runners’ Speed and Spirit - NYTimes.com:
by Marc Bloom

"Fifty years ago this fall, my running career began the way most do in New York, with a trip to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx for a high school cross-country race. It was an inauspicious debut to say the least. My 1962-63 racing diary from junior year at Sheepshead Bay High in Brooklyn contains this comment about a team time trial on the 2.5-mile course: “Stopped five times. First time on course. Terrible experience.”

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Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Van Cortlandt Park is commemorating its 100th year as a mecca for high school meets. More Photos »

Multimedia

Slide Show

Runners at Van Cortland Park

I actually wrote those words 50 years ago: terrible experience. Yet I have run at Van Cortlandt every year since and found it to be a wellspring of athletic purity and a touchstone of grace and empowerment, as have thousands of other runners. My time that day was an embarrassing 21 minutes 50 seconds. I improved by about four minutes in ’62 — and completed the course without stopping — but never broke out of what the Public Schools Athletic League then designated the “scrub” division, sort of a third-string junior varsity."

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