Mayors and governors cannot say they weren’t adequately warned, not just once, but time and time again – in news stories, reports, photographs and graphic personal recollections. New York City was told in 1968 that it needed to protect its infrastructure from a potential 20-foot rise in water above sea level. Sandy was 14 feet.
Still more official reports by various agencies repeated these warnings over the next four decades – but with little or no action being taken by the city, even though the latest projection warned of water levels rising nearly 30 feet in the vicinity of John F. Kennedy Airport. The December 1992 nor’easter also foreshadowed Sandy flooding major sections of the PATH and subway systems.
Those reports and the accompanying photos provide merely the tips of the proverbial icebergs that these captains of titanic states and urban areas ignore at their citizens’ peril.…