This Rapid Response Research Grant (RAPID) will collect perishable damage data caused by Hurricane Sandy that made landfall on October 29, 2012. It was a very large storm (almost 800 miles in diameter according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) that affected large areas of coastlines of New York (Long Island and New York Metropolitan area) and New Jersey. The storm was judged to be Category 1 based on its wind speed. However, because of its size and coinciding with high lunar tide, it generated high storm surge. The New York Metropolitan area sustained severe damage to coastal structures due to surge and wave actions. Most of the New York Metropolitan area lost electrical power and the transportation system became inoperable because of flooding of tunnels and loss of power. The project will collect data on weather, storm surge and floods, power outage, transit stoppage, and interdependencies of infrastructures in New York Metropolitan area.
The project will identify, collect and disseminate weather-related hazard and damage data induced by Hurricane Sandy for power and transit infrastructure in New York Metropolitan area. The weather data will include measurements of storm surge, flooding, rainfall and wind speeds. The spatial extent of the data collection will be the transit region of New York Metropolitan area and the service areas of the power delivery systems responsible for the transit networks. The weather and damage data will be geo-coded and timelines at regular intervals over the duration of infrastructure recovery will be established. The research team will apply various techniques for data collection including ground-based observations, satellite data, and aerial and water-based survey maps. Interdependencies between transit and power outages will be identified in the database. The resulting database will enhance the research infrastructure of the engineering and urban planning communities in the U.S.
Hurricane Sandy made landfall in the New Jersey – New York region on October 29, 2012, and according to government accounts ranked among the highest in damages caused by hurricanes. The research investigations focused on damage to and recovery of the interdependent New York City transportation and power delivery systems. The findings of the project included the fact that the storm surge was more damaging to these infrastructure systems than wind speed or rainfall, corroborating and extending other investigations. The research’s primary objective was to obtain and synthesize data on the weather-induced damage to the transit and power infrastructure in New York City, primarily Manhattan, and organize and disseminate selected portions of that data. The data were derived through site visits, publicly available information from relevant transit and power delivery companies, and discussions with researchers and modelers of the meteorological data. The focus was on the robustness, recovery and restoration of the physical systems with implications for users of those systems, rather than on the economics. Specifically, the information obtained included meteorological and storm surge data from local airport and water transit weather stations, and the government agencies NOAA, FEMA and DOE. Other sources included the City of New York and the New York Public Service Commission who held hearings, made power outage data publicly available, and published damage reports. As part of the project, extensive weather-related power delivery damage data were obtained through the New York State Public Service Commission. Public information was used for the location and ridership of transit stations and line restoration. Due to security concerns, power grid data for Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in Manhattan could not be obtained or published, which is separate from the main Con ED physical power distribution grid in New York. In light of this, qualitative observations were made which relied upon visualization to supplement statistical analyses for individual power and transit systems and case studies. For example, Zimmerman used Con ED news releases and identified recovery rates for boroughs (published in the Journal of Extreme Events) combining this with transit ridership and line recovery. Insights from case histories include the reopening of the R train, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn, one year after Sandy’s landfall, requiring extensive tunnel repair and likely electrical system repairs from flooding. Con ED’s major power plant in Manhattan was structurally hardened to withstand higher flooding, which is likely to have impacts on the robustness of power for transit systems. Literature on these and other recovery mechanisms is posted on the "Reports" section of the project website. All project data sets were cataloged and made available online at linked websites available through URLs at NYU, LSU and UW. The UW site to which other URLs link is: http://depts.washington.edu/hursandy/index.html. All data sets were also combined through geospatial mapping software for recovery analysis and exposure to flooding and in some cases wind conditions. In order to fully disseminate the project data sets, the team leaders made presentations at numerous conferences, including a presentation at the American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting in 2013 entitled "Electric Power Delivery and Transit Infrastructure Performance Models for Sandy" and at over a dozen professional and education conferences. Zimmerman published "Planning Restoration of Vital Infrastructure Services Following Hurricane Sandy: Lessons learned for Energy and Transportation" in the Journal of Extreme Events and other publications are underway. Broader impacts of the work included educational benefits, dissemination and communication mechanisms in the form of a website and numerous presentations to variety of audiences. The research provided benefits for society in developing a foundation for analyses of the robustness and recovery potential of critical public services upon which society depends – electric power and transit in the context of catastrophic events. Educational benefits included student training and curriculum development. Ten graduate students (two at UW, four at LSU, and four at NYU) received training on this award in conducting field investigations for post-storm events, modeling with geographic information systems software, creating and maintaining websites, organizing complex data sets, interpreting damage and recovery graphs, being involved in the development and application of methods for obtaining and combining weather-induced damage and infrastructure data, and working in teams. Other broader contributions to education were graduate course curriculum enhancement; for example, for two NYU graduate level courses in infrastructure and disaster planning. Educational benefits also included guest lecturing at other universities and to professional organizations, and publications for more formal documentation. The intellectual merit of the project is reflected in the advancement of knowledge described above of meteorological factors contributing to infrastructure damage and of the recovery process for electric power and transit infrastructure in terms of the physical systems, their relationships to one another, and the usage of the services they provide. Its merits also include research methodologies that link storm and infrastructure characteristics and provide guidance for other future events.
