7 years after Superstorm Sandy, $615M project funded to guard against next monster storm

By Adriana Navarro, AccuWeather staff writer

Nearly seven years after Superstorm Sandy devastated coastal communities in New York and New Jersey, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a study placemat in June for a levee system and seawall to guard Staten Island's eastern shoreline against a similarly powerful future storm, a weather event that could affect thousands of lives.

New York City's government website lays out the Staten Island levee project as a series of interconnected levees, berms and seawalls that will stretch across Staten Island's east shore, from Fort Wadsworth to Great Kills. The USACE estimates the project area will protect 7,300 structures and over 30,000 people.

Superstorm Sandy hit in October 2012, sweeping up the East Coast and claiming the lives of about 159 people from the mid-Atlantic to the northeastern United States. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recorded at least 147 direct deaths across the Atlantic basin from Sandy, 72 of which had occurred in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

This is the greatest number of U.S. direct fatalities related to a tropical cyclone outside of the Southern states since Hurricane Agnes in 1972, according to the agency.

This Nov. 29, 2012 photo shows the devastation that Superstorm Sandy and a raging fire caused to a beachfront neighborhood in Brick, N.J. where about 100 homes were destroyed. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

A total of 43 fatalities were blamed on Sandy in New York City, with 24 of those deaths occurring on Staten Island, a borough situated to the south of Manhattan in New York Harbor and just east of New Jersey across Arthur Kill, also known as the Staten Island Sound.

The system will "provide protection up to a storm that is 2 feet higher than what occurred during Sandy, almost a 300-year level event," Project Manager Frank Verga told AccuWeather Network Reporter Kena Vernon.

According a mitigation assessment report from FEMA, surge levels rose to 9.56 feet at the northern end of Staten Island, and coastal inundation levels reached 4 to 9 feet on the island.

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Sandy left about $71 billion in damage in its wake, making it the fourth costliest storm in U.S. history behind Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Hurricanes Harvey and Maria in 2017, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. About 27 percent of that $71 billion in damages occurred throughout the area the wall would protect.

Photos of the wreckage show flooded New York streets and metros, houses torn from their foundation and pieces of what were once homes strewn about. Seaside neighborhoods were all but swallowed by the storm surge. The Star Jet, a steel roller coaster that had been at the Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, plunged into the ocean. For months, it was an iconic reminder of the damage Superstorm Sandy had caused until it was removed six months later.

In this Feb. 25, 2013, file photo, the sun rises behind the Jet Star roller coaster, partially submerged in the Atlantic Ocean after Superstorm Sandy destroyed part of the Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, N.J. A new roller coaster named Hydrus, built safely inland above the beach rather than out over the water, opened May 6, 2017, more than four years after the storm caused billions of dollars' worth of damage to the coast. (AP Photo/Mel Evans, File)

Officials say Superstorm Sandy caused $19 billion in damage throughout the area including Staten Island, inspiring the USACE to design a seawall to help protect the communities. The USACEestimates the storm damaged 80% of structures in the area the storm wall would be built to protect.

The Staten Island Levee project is estimated to reduce damage in the area by about $30 million annually over a 50-year timeline, according to an early study done by the USACE.

Chief of Coastal Restoration Anthony Ciorra told AccuWeather that when the project is completed, it could even lead to the remapping of FEMA flood zones and possibly lower flood insurance premiums.

Construction on the project is estimated to begin in the summer of 2020 and reach completion by the winter of 2024, 12 years after Sandy hit Staten Island.

An Oct. 31, 2012 file aerial photo shows destruction in the wake of superstorm Sandy in Seaside Heights, N.J. At a hearing Wednesday Jan. 8, 2014, in Trenton, N.J., New Jersey’s community affairs commissioner Richard Constable defended the state’s efforts to help homeowners and renters affected by Superstorm Sandy. He spoke after some victims said they are still struggling to find a place to live, while others wait for money they fear may never come. (AP Photo/Mike Groll, File)

This past February, the USACE and New York state formed a project partnership agreement to secure funding for the construction of the Staten Island levee project. The agreement allots a $400 million contribution to the $615 million project, which is expected to begin in 2020 and could be finished in about four years.

New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation is contributing $150 million and New York City is contributing $65 million in city capital funds, according to New York City officials. The annual upkeep and maintenance costs for this project is estimated at around $679,000.

The cost of the project is dwarfed by the Center for Climate Integrity's estimation that it could cost the U.S. more than $400 billion over the next 20 years to protect coastal communities.

Additional reporting by Kena Vernon.

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