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June 19 - July 2, 2013
Storms, Lower Manhattan & the mayor’s report BY T E RE SE LO E B K R E U Z E R Southern Manhattan gets its own chapter in the 438-page report released on June 11 that assesses New York City’s vulnerability to climate change and describes what can be done about it. “A Stronger, More Resilient New York” has become a page turner for anyone interested in trying to plumb the city’s thinking on possible short-term and long-term responses to sea-level rise, hurricanes, storm surges, heat waves, droughts and heavy downpours. “Southern Manhattan” as described in the book is comprised of Battery Park City, Chinatown, Hudson Yards/Chelsea, the Lower East Side, Lower Manhattan, Stuyvesant Town/Kips Bay, Tribeca and the West Village. It was among the places hardest hit by Superstorm Sandy. The other neighborhoods meriting their own chapters in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan were the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront, the eastern and southern shores of Staten Island, south Queens and southern Brooklyn. The mayor’s plan quantifies Sandy’s damage citywide: 43 deaths, 6,500 patients evacuated from hospitals and nursing homes, nearly 90,000 buildings in the inundation zone, 1.1 million New York City children unable to attend school for a week, close to 2 million people without power, 11 million travelers affected daily, $19 billion in damage.
Downtown Express file photo by Milo Hess
Battery Park flooding after Sandy.
As a coastal city, New York always was vulnerable to storms and flooding but many people shrugged. Now, even a prediction from the New York City Office of Emergency
Management for “Moderate to heavy rain and strong winds” elicits tremors of anxiety. At the peak of Sandy’s surge, tides in the Battery were 14 feet higher than they
would be at average low-water height. The water crashed over southern Manhattan’s Continued on page 12
Do Your Children Love Theater? Register today for a theater immersion program Enter the land of Narnia in a week-long theatrical immersion program featuring professional story tellers, dance instructors, and Broadway actors. Space is limited; register today! When: Monday, July 8 – Friday, July 12, 9am-3pm Where: 74 Trinity Place (the office building behind Trinity Church) Who: Children grades K-5 How Much: $175 per child for the entire week (scholarships available)
trinitywallstreet.org/narnia
Leah Reddy
an Episcopal parish in the city of New York
Credit: Hemera collection, Thinkstock
How to register: Email Lisa Bridge, Program Manager for Children and Youth Ministries, at lbridge@trinitywallstreet.org or call 212.602.9627