Tag Archives: Hurricane Sandy

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Op-ed: Did we learn from Hurricane Sandy?

One year ago, Hurricane Sandy slammed into the New York and New Jersey coasts. As a result, 43 people died, lower Manhattan was dark for days, and seven hospitals had to be evacuated. In New York and New Jersey, 650,000 houses were damaged, 8.5 million people lost power and reconstruction is expected to cost more than $60 billion.

This destruction reawakened our leaders to the vulnerability of our coastal communities and brought home the dangers of climate change. But have we learned the right lessons?

Read the full op-ed here: http://hamptonroads.com/2013/11/marqusee-and-titley-did-we-learn-hurricane-sandy

Hurricane battered trees

Hurricane Sandy Spawns Storm of Climate Research

Parsing the underlying climate factors that drove Sandy to its fateful encounter with the Northeast is important, but ultimately how that knowledge is used to prepare for the next storm is what really matters.

“Maybe 10 years ago I would’ve asked how do I layer my power infrastructure data over my transportation data over my population and then put a hurricane on top,” said David Titley, a retired Navy Rear Admiral. “Now what people are looking for is the nonlinear relationships between those dynamic systems so when I put a hurricane on top of this, I can better understand the cascading failures.”

Titley now runs the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at Penn State, a relatively new research endeavor, which is focused on solutions and opportunities offered by weather and climate predictions and data to planners across a variety of sectors.

Click here to read the full article:  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hurricane-sandy-spawns-storm-of-climate-research/