Climate Change Effecting New York City

I Nickia Davis student from LaGuardia Community College had an assignment to write about a New York Times article called "New York is Lagging as Seas and Risk Rise Critics Warn" Written by Mireya Navarro, and published on September 10th, 2012. The purpose of this article was to explain how climate change is effecting New York and what the city should be doing to prevent disasters from happening.

New York threatened by rising sea levels and storm flooding has worried everyone! Giving city officials props for environmental awareness, but slow and steady pace of actually working on a solution to prevent the problems to our threatened city. Douglass Hill an engineer with the storm surge group stated " They lack a sense of urgency with this!" which I agree. What if its to late? When Hurricane Irene hit New York City august 28th 2011 it wasn't as bad as they thought, for it turned into a tropical storm, but In October 29th 2012 Hurricane Sandy hit and she wasn't as nice!

Hurricane Sandy flooded many areas such as Canarsie area in Brooklyn, Downtown Brooklyn, and even lower Manhattan. Just like Irene all transportation was shut down, but for Sandy the tunnels were flooded streets, and even the electricity was out! Many people where left without homes. Douglass Hill the man I mentioned before had a suggestion that the State and Federal agencies invest in something to protect the City from this kind of harm. Like building sea gates. Now if these Gates were built it could have prevent the effects of Hurricane Sandy. Eddie Bautista executive director of New York City environmental justice said that there is to much focus on the lower Manhattan when there are other industries else where along the water front of New York City. Now Canarsie is an area located in Brooklyn not Manhattan, but these people who lived there struggle to get by now because of flooded homes, some with out homes, and businesses ruined! Now this area is not located in lower Manhattan! So what about them?

A comment made by D.O.B says "It's disaster waiting to happen with these unpredictable extreme weather events increasing in incidence." His or her story was being on the path train and how the tunnels got flooded. What if it was me on the train and that happened? I mean of course any humanly thing is to be scared , but what if this could of had a chance to be prevented? like Douglass Hill suggested the sea gates to stop flooding. At that moment I would be wishing that the New York react as fast as possible and build these sea gates. I mean I wouldn't know if its actually possible to build sea gates but if it is why not build it if it helps against climate change. Why prolong it any more.