![]() “It’s pretty necessary that we don’t see that type of damage again,” he says. But the agency has made big strides since Sandy hit, says Ortiz, and the system is in much better shape than it was in 2012. There is no one-size-fits-all approach or mechanism."Īs all L-train riders know too well, permanently hardening the system against flooding will take the MTA many years-and may never really stop, as climate change will bring ever more severe and frequent storms. "We have different-sized staircases and vent covers. ”Some parts of our system are 111 years old,” says Kevin Ortiz, a spokesperson for the MTA. To capture water before it trickles into the subway, the agency is lining the lips of about 450 vulnerable manholes with special pans, while in-house engineers are testing out different solutions for covering thousands of street-level vents. It’s a slow, complicated process figuring out the best way to waterproof the subway, which has an estimated 5,600 street-level openings vulnerable to floods, according to the Wall Street Journal. The plugs are capable of stopping not just water but also smoke and gas, handy in the event of a terrorist attack. MTA has also tested another ILC Dover product charmingly known as a “ resilient tunnel plug”-a super-tough inflatable dam that expands from a wall container to fill the full circumference of a subway tube section. Also in the works are Portal Flex-Gates (pictured at the top), a larger-scale version that function like garage doors to cover rail and vehicle tunnels such as the Brooklyn Battery and Queens-Midtown. They’re mostly around lower Manhattan, where the greatest flood risk is, but certain coast-adjacent stations in Harlem and Brooklyn will also be kitted out. ![]() Two of those tubes have been fixed, three more are underway, and there’s still a lot more work to come: In July, much to Brooklynites’ ire, the MTA announced plans to shut down the L train for 18 months in 2019 in order to repair outstanding Sandy-related harm to the Canarsie Tunnel.įlex-Gates have now been installed in 14 subway station entrances around New York City, and by the end of the year, another 50 or more should be in place. Since then, the Metropolitan Transit Authority has been spending about $4 billion in mostly federal disaster funds to repair and harden its train yards and subway tunnels. Between the total devastation of the South Ferry Station (which is still under reconstruction) and the nine flooded tunnels, the metro system sustained billions of dollars in damage. Millions of gallons of seawater poured down subway entrances, manholes, and thousands of other openings to the subterranean spaces below. When the hurricane hit in October 2012, rain and storm surge turned impermeable asphalt and concrete streets into rivers. Superstorm Sandy did a number on the New York City subway. Materials are specified for long-term exposure to harsh, outdoor conditions so they are not prone to corrosion or rust.This story originally appeared on CityLab and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In addition to vehicular & pedestrian entryways, these flood barriers can be designed to protect vulnerable vent shafts & ducts. Moreover, FloodBreak products are designed for long service life with minimal maintenance so they will operate as designed for decades. ![]() ![]() These self-rising flood barriers, unlike traditional flood control measures, permanently mitigate flood risk. Passive flood barriers like FloodBreak’s eliminate this requirement and deploy automatically regardless of whether personnel can get there or not. FloodBreak eliminates that problem and the risk posed to people and owned assets.įEMA states its preference for passive flood mitigation measures because it eliminates human intervention. There has never been flood damage behind a properly installed FloodBreak-protected entrance.Īctive flood control products require human action, a primary cause of avoidable flood damage. Without human intervention and without power. Self-activating barrier provides uninterrupted flood protection, using hydrostatic pressure or action to deploy instead of power or human intervention. Second, that, in order to bring the extreme limits of the city into closer relations, provision must be made for the running of trains at higher speed than was. FloodBreak was founded on a fundamental yet very simple concept - using the power of rising water against itself to automatically protect structures from flood damage caused by floodwaters. ![]()
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