A City Submerged...

---

Here's a really moving short film by Claire&Max imagining what New York City might look like underwater. These eerie and provocative scenes provide a window into an inevitable future for many coastal cities around the world.

"The place of man in our society is one of the main themes of our work, with the theme of emptiness and abandonment, convinced of the anthropic impact on the environment. The global warming that we deduce from the rising waters is only one element of all the environmental degradations like the air and water pollution, impoverishment and depletion." - Claire&Max

Post-Hurricane Sandy (2012) in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. (Source)

The Rising Reality along the Coast

---

With films like these, we are reminded of how vulnerable our coastal cities are, how ineffective our infrastructure can be under stress and how disturbing the reality is for the coming century. Sea levels will continue to swell as global temperatures march higher. While an inch or two every decade or so might not seem very threatening, that amount compounds itself during storm surges and combines with tides to allow water into and over coastal areas that lack much of a topography to begin with.

During Hurricane Sandy in New York City - surrounding waters rose 13.88 feet above normal levels along Battery Park, toppling a previous local record by nearly 4 feet from Hurricane Donna back in 1960. With the 14 foot surge, rain (surprisingly) wasn't much of a contributing factor. Hurricane Sandy left only about 1 inch of rain in New York City, while Donna dropped a total of 4.95 inches. That 14 foot rise was actually a combination of astronomical tide cycles and water pressure as a result of the strong storm system. As a whole, Sandy resulted in 32 billion dollars in damages, while claiming 53 lives in the process.

As waters continue to swell worldwide, the impacts of surges can mount exponentially. In 2005, Pass Christian (Mississippi) witnessed a record storm surge of 27.8 feet triggered by Hurricane Katrina, which claimed the lives of 1,833 people, leaving 108 billion dollars in damages and millions of homes underwater. These "surges" are becoming more of a standard along our fragile coastlines. The longer we neglect problems of infrastructural planning and energy protection the greater of a threat they will pose as time goes on.

Updated New York City flood zones. (Source)

“We’ve just been lucky. We need hardening for the risk we’ve always faced. Until things happen, people aren’t willing to pay for it.” - NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg (2012)

Today, we must be able to discuss climate in the same context as economy.

---

Fundamentally, these storms are posing a seasonal (reoccurring) energy and economic crisis. Why aren't we discussing it in that way?

Overall, energy infrastructure in America is aging and weakening. By 2020, it will cost Americans an additional 107 billion dollars to repair bits and pieces of weakened energy net. Without a focus on renewable resources, these issues will continue to grow. Problems with coastal and inland infrastructure become painfully clear with hurricanes and tropical storms. With Sandy, nearly 8.5 million homes lost electricity across 15 states due to high winds and damaging rains. The storm left 32 billion dollars in damages. Thousands of roadways and public transportation lines were underwater, effecting tens of millions of residents and commuters.

New York City, the most iconic modern city in the world, was cut in half. As we bridge into the 21st century we need to make sure that these events are remembered and learned from. We need to begin calling "100-year storms" - "10-year storms." We must talk about climate in parallel with economy.

Lower Manhattan without power during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, photograph by Iwan Baan. (Source)

follow me @voronoi | design collective @hitheryon