The “Big U” plan developed by BIG would create a wide berm with trees and plants along the edge of Manhattan at the Battery. The design creates areas for walking and other recreation in a green space that would hinder and manage water intrusion during storms. (rebuilding by design)

By Patrick J. Kiger

In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy slammed into coastal New York and New Jersey, causing 147 deaths and an estimated $50 billion in property damage and traumatizing the nation with televised images of neighborhoods reduced to rubble and stormwater surging through the streets of lower Manhattan. But the magnitude of that catastrophe also made it a catalyst for a transformation in urban planning and infrastructure design—one that may help protect the region against future ravages of extreme weather and rising sea levels from climate change.

Not quite two months after the hurricane, then-U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan went to the Netherlands to see what he could learn from the low-lying European nation’s long history of coping with the continual threat of flooding. His guide was a Dutch water management expert named Henk Ovink who suggested to Donovan that Sandy’s aftermath was a potential pivot point for upgrading climate resiliency policy in the United States. “I said, here is a great opportunity to come up with a new approach,” Ovink recalls......Continue Reading

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