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[dramatis]

As the houses came down, the land opened up for the first time in over 100 years.

In the four years since Hurricane Sandy, no neighborhood in New York City has changed as radically as Oakwood Beach in Staten Island. Rows of houses and apartments once lined the streets of this quiet oceanfront neighborhood, but most of those buildings are now gone, either destroyed by the storm or torn down by the government as part of a "managed retreat" from the rising seas.

In total, the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery (GOSR) has acquired 299 homes here at a cost of $122 million, and has now taken down 196 properties, leaving behind a haven for foraging mammals, birds, insects and plants, with no apex predators in sight.

What is most surprising about this process of strategic retreat is that more waterfront neighborhoods in New York City have not yet joined in. Many communities throughout the city are at risk of serious damage in future storms, and several already flood on a regular basis, including Hamilton Beach and Broad Channel Island.

"Managed retreat is the strategy that most effectively eliminates this risk by restoring land to its natural floodplain functions," says Catie Marshall, a spokesperson for the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery. "This strategy becomes all the more important in the face of imminent sea level rise and the new reality of increasingly frequent storms."

It's mostly a series of images capturing the wildlife and the overgrowing of the particular Staten Island neighborhood. I imagine that highly populated coastal areas will have to undergo managed retreat in the close upcoming years, particularly given that there is a Republican problem in Congress right now that prevents major action on climate change.

Sandy was 'alive' between Oct 22 and Nov 2 of 2012. It caused an estimated $71 billion in damage to the US, not counting the Caribbean countries that also suffered a lot of damage.

I live fairly 'inland' in Brooklyn, so my power did not go down, my basement did not flood, and my house suffered no damage from wind. However, there are still ongoing Sandy recovery efforts in the city, and notably the L subway train line has to be shut down soon for repairs related to damage left behind by Sandy. Seeing subway lines flooded from the tracks up to the platform (and above even that!) was something I never expected in NYC.

 

[GusBus]

I too live in Brooklyn, op (although I didn't at the time of Sandy). Managed retreat is the only option for many shore communities, both in Brooklyn/Lower Manhattan and throughout Long Island.

I visited a friend in Long Beach at the end of the summer, and people were still rebuilding homes (on raised concrete foundations, primarily) to avoid future storm damage. The whole boardwalk there was destroyed, and has since been rebuilt along with tons of new beachside condos. The willful ignorance is astounding.

The primary catalyst for change will be insurance companies, imo. Once they say that beachfront property is no longer insurable due to storm surge viability, you'll see people pack inland. Money talks, and insurance companies know the truth about climate change.

 

[Jim]

People on South Shore Long Island don't give a shit... they are just raising their houses and rebuilding even bigger than before, even with the huge flood insurance premium increases. Demand is still high to spite the risk.

 

[smokeymicpot]

That area is still messed up. I work up the block from the area and going down there is a different world.