When the Big Apple met


Hurricane Sandy


How U.S.’s largest coastal city survived the superstorm of the century


Residents affected by Superstorm Sandy wait in line outside the Coney Island Gospel Assembly church to collect food and supplies in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Friday, Nov. 9, 2012.


© PA Images I


n October 2012, Hurricane Sandy, a 1,000- mile wide massive extra-tropical storm,


unleashed its fury on the east coast of the United States and centered much of its anger and impact on New York City.


It was unlike any other storm in the city’s history, and tragically 43 New Yorkers lost their lives.


This storm was the product of a confluence of weather elements that resulted in a worst- case scenario for the City. Sandy’s arrival coincided with a full moon that gave rise to astronomical high tides, and its path was altered when it collided with a second weather front that caused it to turn towards New Jersey, putting the city on the northeastern side of its winds. These factors led to the massive surge that hit many beachfront neighborhoods.


Water levels at Manhattan’s southernmost tip, the Battery, reached an unprecedented 13.88 feet – a scenario that the U.S. Federal


Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimated had a less-than-one-percent chance of happening.


By the U.S. National Weather Service’s (NWS) forecasts, Sandy was expected to be a strong Nor’easter, a classic Northeast winter storm, with surge levels approximating that of Hurricane Irene, which averaged about four to eight feet. The forecast characterized the surge as a piling of water building slowly over a predicted 24-hour period as opposed to a strong surge with rapid inundation of water that typically characterizes hurricane storm surge along the U.S. coastline. In reality, Sandy contained both the relentless piling of water typical of the Nor’easter and the surge of a strong Category 1 hurricane.


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