Residents living on the far outskirts of Queens, New York, are enduring floods nearly every month and worsening coastal storms.
an alarming six feet or more along U.S. coastlines by the end of the century. In this scenario, most of the communities surrounding Jamaica Bay would be inundated every day by high tides., which means they have a 1% chance of experiencing a major disaster every year. The city has also lost a majority of its sand dunes and coastal marshlands, which historically provided natural buffers to rising sea levels and storms and protected residents in low-lying neighborhoods.
"Communities like mine won't survive if nothing's done," said Gendron, who turned 60 this year and eventually plans to leave the neighborhood to find a single-story home for he and his wife. The plan also calls for integrating natural solutions like wetland restoration and living shorelines built out of sand, oyster shells and plants in order to blunt the force of waves. These types of natural projects, some of which are already underway at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, would be balanced with the Army Corp's man-made engineered solutions.
"We would look to advance various features into construction as quickly as possible," Wisemiller said. "This is all subject to construction authorization, non-federal sponsor support and funding from Congress." The plan chosen by the Army Corps was one of five proposed options, which ranged from doing nothing to spending more than twice as much at $112 billion. The more extensive option had more flood control projects across New York and New Jersey, including more than 7 miles of flood barriers along shorelines on New York Harbor, which would be the longest storm barrier in the world.
"There are some communities that will eventually need to leave — it's just a matter of time," said Paul Gallay, the director of the Columbia Center for Sustainable Urban Development's Resilient Coastal Communities Program. "But these communities will need to know that there's no better option before they consider relocation."
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