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Hurricane Sandy: Evaluating the Response One Year Later

Critical Questions by Sarah Ladislaw and Stephanie Sanok Kostro and Molly Walton

Published November 4, 2013

On Friday President Obama issued a new executive order directing federal agencies to coordinate with state and local actors to increase the  ability to prepare for the impacts of climate change and to improve the resiliency of communities and infrastructure.  The order also establishes a task force, comprised of state, local and tribal officials that will advise the federal government on climate preparedness and resilience.  Such an announcement is timely as this past week marked the one year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, the largest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and, at an estimated cost of over $65 billion , the 2nd most expensive hurricane in US history. Twenty four states – mostly along the eastern seaboard of the United States – sustained physical and financial damage from the storm. The impact of the storm highlighted vulnerabilities of key infrastructure (e.g., roads, bridges, sewage, water, energy systems) that stemmed in part from a lack of investment in sufficient hardening, giving rise to questions regarding our preparedness as a nation for natural disasters, our mechanisms of response, and the appropriate roles for federal, state, and local governments, philanthropic organizations, and private sector entities in such events. Of course, over the previous decades Hurricane Katrina, other hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods and their associated costs repeatedly brought to light these very same issues. However, the ensuing national dialogue was a bit different after Hurricane Sandy. Whereas before the focus of the debate had often centered on whether storms were caused or strengthened by climate change, Hurricane Sandy brought to the fore a broader, sustained discussion on the need for adaptation and the importance of resiliency efforts that had long been debated in academic, corporate, and policy circles and in areas often hard-hit by hurricanes, like the Gulf Coast. After Hurricane Sandy, the focus was squarely on how to move forward with longer-term preparedness and recovery efforts . Q1 : What were the preparedness and response efforts by both the federal government and the state governments leading up to Hurricane Sandy? A1 : In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy pounded the east coast, severely impacting densely populated areas of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut with strong winds, heavy rains, and record storm surges; millions of people lost power, roads flooded so transport options were restricted, and thousands sought temporary shelter as homes and businesses were destroyed.  Nearly 160 people lost their lives in Hurricane Sandy and many communities are still rebuilding. Learning from past challenges in preparing for, and providing relief efforts after, Hurricane Katrina, the federal government – led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with support from other federal departments – began to place staff and assets in the predicted impact areas before the storm made landfall and worked with state counterparts to coordinate potential emergency response and relief. On October 28, 2012, one day before the storm made landfall in New Jersey, President Obama signed emergency declarations for Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, allowing FEMA to transfer resources directly to state, local, and tribal organizations to make preparations in advance of the storm. He signed additional emergency declarations for other states, such as Delaware and West Virginia, in the following days. On October 30th, President Obama directed FEMA to create the National Power Restoration Taskforce, which was to minimize red tape, increase coordination among government agencies at all levels and the private sector, and rapidly restore fuel and power. Such actions show a marked change from the way authorities dealt with Hurricane Katrina, this time FEMA was proactive rather than reactive. This is due in part to legislation approved by Congress to restructure FEMA following the miscues of Hurricane Katrina, which allowed quicker access to federal resources and increased communication and partnerships between the federal, state and local agencies. States also began anticipating response, relief, and longer-term recovery requirements, leveraging their existing relationships with private sector, community-based, philanthropic, media, and other organizations to communicate with residents and business-owners and to call in the necessary staff, first responders, and other disaster relief workers. Public-private partnerships, in particular, were a critical element to activate before disaster struck; those partnerships – coupled with disaster grants and volunteer organizations – were a key element of immediate response and longer-term recovery efforts. Over the past year, the administration has provided over 230,000 people and businesses with assistance through its various departments (FEMA, Small Business Administration (SBA), Department of Labor among others). Q2: Did Hurricane Sandy cause governments to approach natural disaster preparedness and management differently?  A2:  The Federal government took several significant steps in the months that followed Hurricane Sandy, focusing primarily on legislative reforms, innovations, and public-private partnerships. In January 2013, President Obama signed two critical pieces of legislation: H.R. 41 (Public Law 113-1), which increased the borrowing authority of FEMA by almost $10 billion as an emergency requirement, allowing the agency to continue to pay flood insurance and other disaster-related claims; and the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act (Public Law 113-2), which provided $50 billion in funding to help rebuild the areas impacted by Hurricane Sandy. In February 2013, he created a Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, chaired by Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, to coordinate Federal support and to work with state, local, and tribal communities in the impacted states. In August 2013, the Task Force released a Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Strategy , which provides recommendations for the areas impacted by Hurricane Sandy to rebuild and better prepare for future extreme weather events.  Recommendations include: promoting resilient rebuilding; ensuring regionally coordinated and resilient approaches to infrastructure investment; providing families safe and affordable housing options and protections; supporting small businesses and revitalizing local economies; addressing insurance challenges; and increasing local government’s capacity to plan for long-term rebuilding and preparations for future disasters. The Strategy also assesses ways to harden energy infrastructure to ensure minimal power disruptions and fuel shortages and how to maintain continuous cellular service. These recommendations, if implemented fully, promise to go a long way in addressing key challenges demonstrated by Hurricane Sandy and other previous natural disasters. In addition, microgrids were identified as a key way to improve energy resiliency and the Department of Energy announced in the summer of 2013 plans to partner with the state of New Jersey, NJ Transit, and the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to install a microgrid capable of supplying power during a storm. Connecticut was the first state to establish a microgrid program and in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is looking to utilize private-public partnerships to put in place 800 megawatt installed capacity of microgrid and distributed generation systems by 2030. In fact, New York City has been a leader in its efforts to better plan for the impacts from increased climatic events. In December 2012, NYC formed the Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency and tasked it with assessing the risks faced by New York’s infrastructure, buildings and communities from the impacts of climate change in the medium (2020) and long term (2060s) and to produce a strategy to increase the resiliency of the city.  On June 11, 2013, Mayor Bloomberg released a report called “ A Stronger, More Resilient New York ” which has several initiatives that address coastal protection, insurance, utilities, community preparedness and response, transportation, telecommunication, water and wastewater as well as plans to rebuild communities that were hard hit in order to make them more resilient. Friday’s Executive Order- Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change , further highlights the attention being paid towards increasing the resiliency of communities and infrastructure and the need for greater investment by and coordination between federal, state and local actors to help prepare for and mitigate the effects of climate change.

Q3: How has Hurricane Sandy helped us to understand our energy sector vulnerabilities?

A3: Critical infrastructure was drastically impacted by Hurricane Sandy and some of the impacts, such as power outages, lasted several days. This blatant reminder of key existing vulnerabilities within our infrastructure prompted several studies designed to better understand these vulnerabilities and their potential knock on effects and to explore opportunities to improve the resiliency of these systems to ensure that in the event of a disaster (natural or man-made) that the necessary emergency response functions remain operational. For example, a study sponsored by the US Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) prepared by ICF International evaluated the potential for combined heat and power (CHP) to mitigate the potential disruption of critical infrastructure. Another study, released in July 2013 by the Department of Energy called “ U.S. Energy Sector Vulnerabilities to Climate Change and Extreme Weather” was part of the administration’s national climate change adaptation plan as coordinated through the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force and Strategic Sustainability Planning (established under Executive Order 13512). The report identifies five key technologies that will be a key part of a climate-resilient energy system: upgraded power grid (via the development of microgrids and distributed generation), crisis hardened facilities (and the placement of critical electricity infrastructure in less vulnerable places), less-water intensive fracking, drought tolerant biofuel crops, and less water-dependent power plants.

Q4:  Where does climate fit in Obama’s second term?

A4: President Obama has long argued that climate change is a fundamental challenge of our time. In his first term, the Obama administration aggressively pursued cap and trade and clean-energy/low carbon policies only to have the landscape completely shift with the emergence of unconventional natural gas and a dramatic and prolonged economic downturn. Each of these challenged the narrative and the justifications used by the administration to aggressively pursue the decarbonization of the economy. However, with his re-election and his remarks about climate change in his second inaugural address and the state of the union, President Obama signaled that climate change was once again a component of his agenda. In June of 2013, the administration laid out its plan for dealing with climate change , committing to reducing U.S. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to nearly 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The President’s Climate Action Plan was comprised of three key categories: carbon reduction, adaptation and preparedness efforts and international collaboration.

Q5: Did Hurricane Sandy change the debate on climate change?

A5: There has been an increasing shift in focus regarding climate change away from a mitigation mindset to a broader narrative that incorporates themes such as adaptation and resiliency.   Resiliency has increasingly become a buzzword, especially as climatic events occur with greater frequency.  Hurricane Sandy, while only one of many weather related events that impacted US energy systems in recent years, intensified the debate surrounding the need to harden our infrastructure to withstand the impacts of climate change that events prior had been unable to do. Thus, it would seem that Hurricane Sandy has helped recast the narrative for technologies such as smart grid, distributed energy and energy storage. Such technologies used to be marketed as a way to reduce carbon emissions and increase the penetration of renewable energy. Now, they are seen as key component of a climate-resilient energy strategy, and are now discussed as a way to introduce greater reliability and resiliency into the energy system.

It remains to be seen whether or not this shift is here to stay at a national level or if only those localities impacted by Hurricane Sandy will pursue resiliency oriented policies.  Historically, the attention span of the general populous has waxed and waned from crisis to crisis (we are in general reactive rather than proactive), making it difficult to sustain support (monetary as well as political) for implementing the changes required to create  a climate resiliency framework. However, it is worth noting that adaptation and preparedness are a major prong of the President’s Climate Action plan and locally, especially in areas like New Jersey and New York, the focus on resiliency has filtered into policy plans.

Molly A. Walton is a Research Associate with the Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Sarah O. Ladislaw is Co-Director of the Energy and National Security Program and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Stephanie Sanok Kostro is acting director of the Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C Critical Questions is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

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SMEM - Case Study - Hurricane Sandy

Social Media in Emergency Management (Hurricane Sandy)

The following case study describes the strategic disaster recovery measures that were implemented during Hurricane Sandy, a catastrophic event that occurred in the USA and parts of Canada in 2012, segregated along the four main dimensions – People, Governance, Technology and Implementation – of the  Social Media Emergency Management (SMEM)  maturity model.

Hurricane Sandy, 2012

The hurricane that caused the most damage during the Atlantic Hurricane season of 2012, Sandy wreaked havoc in many states along the eastern coast of the USA and parts of Canada after making landfall close to Kingston, along south east Jamaica. New Jersey and New York were amongst the most badly hit cities. Torrential downpours and intense air currents ravaged through thousands of residential areas. Streets, tunnels and underground pathways were submerged under water. Power outages were widespread in urban zones. 21 people in Staten Island in New York lost their lives. The death toll reached a total of 147 in the USA. The monetary value of damages and losses due to the catastrophe were approximated at a colossal $50 billion.

While the sudden occurrence of earthquakes at Haiti and Christchurch didn’t leave the local residents much time to prepare for  disaster recovery , the inhabitants in all the regions that fell along Hurricane Sandy’s projected path were alerted well ahead of time by local weather departments of the approaching storm. News channels on TV and radio were abuzz with red alerts the entire week prior to Sandy’s landfall. The then US president, Barack Obama declared emergency in many states for the 28th of October as air currents intensified severely after briefly slackening down. FEMA kept a tight watch as Sandy drew closer and grew in momentum while simultaneously deploying disaster recovery preparedness and response plans in coordination with their regional associates.

Individuals across interest groups – government agencies, NGOs, business organizations, volunteer associations and general public – used social media extensively before, during and after the event occurred.

Local citizens used online platforms to:

• Contact close friends and family
• Voice out specific problems and issues to disaster recovery teams
• Extend solidarity to groups who had suffered losses and damage

Disaster recovery  teams were constantly monitoring the vast traffic of online information. Although official disaster recovery squads could not adequately verify all the data being transmitted through digital channels, the information shared did provide insights on trends and patterns. Many impacted people who had suffered losses and damage during the storm found it useful while trying to source and locate essential needs such as: fuel, comestibles and safety zones.

Some seasoned virtual volunteer associations augmented the collective response in the digital space by collating critical information – facts, figures and suggestions – from a variety of sources and uploading them in a common path. Many volunteer associations even helped in validating some of the data that was being shared.

The impact Hurricane Sandy was having on the lives of Americans generated record breaking levels of internet traffic on social media platforms. The statistics even surprised official bodies like FEMA and New York City who have a wide and extensive presence in the digital arena.

• More than 2,000 tweets from NYC accounts
• Facebook member count in excess of 300,000
• Nearly three million widget views for EMA Hurricane Sandy
• Nearly one million visits on the FEMA website

Official disaster recovery squads and volunteer groups liaised extensively on a variety of tasks such as collating, validating, exchanging, mapping and uploading information.

There were instances when volunteer groups and official squads were collaborating with each other for the first time. Coordination and synchronization of these efforts without any past reference of the other group’s working culture posed a few challenges.

The American government had been emphasizing on the correct utilization of online platforms in disaster recovery for over two years when Hurricane Sandy occurred. The US Department of Homeland Security had put together a panel of industry experts with diverse profiles who hailed from different backgrounds such as government agencies, emergency response squads, volunteer association and intellectuals. The objective was to help the  emergency management  fraternity assimilate time tested social media strategies that are specific to the various stages of a crisis situation (before, during and after) and can be employed in live scenarios.

The result findings and conclusions were archived and shared through various publications. These printed editions outlined a broad framework for engineering social media capabilities, the mechanisms required, along with strategies for developing policies and procedures for the digital arena. A Social Media Emergency Protocol was also introduced in 2011 that encouraged NYC personnel to constantly engage with the city’s civilian population through online platforms. By the time Sandy struck in 2012, the initiative kick started a year earlier was a well oiled machinery that fostered a substantial amount of synergy between NYC’s official community, Samaritans in the digital space and the general public. The result was a seamless collaboration between the three groups during the implementation of preventive, response, rescue and recovery measures.

FEMA also chipped in with mission critical crowd-sourced solutions for the same. Their ‘Innovation Team’ – an eclectic group of specialized professional from various industries and sectors – participated both remotely as well as on the field. Their activities included:

• Providing aid and rescue
• Rectifying connectivity disruption issues
• Routing people to relief zones, safe locations and food camps

Extensive  disaster recovery  support from volunteers greatly increased the staff strength in FEMA’s regional offices. These volunteers provided efficient interfacing between official teams and amateur groups. For example, before conducting sanitizing activities at residences, volunteer groups would make sure that public authorities had disposed off any hazardous wastes in the area that could lead to health and toxicity issues.

The Innovation Team proved to be an exemplary display of crisis time governance. However, there were some operational challenges that were identified and analyzed later in retrospect, including:

• Lack of process driven coordination between nonconventional groups and official disaster recovery squads
• Technology pre-deployment symptoms during slow paced incidents
• Lack of detailed policies and protocols outlining the use of social media

Cell phone and web based connectivity was severely hit as a result of power failures and inundations. An operational communications infrastructure during emergencies was imperative in order to effectively engage in rescue and recovery measures. Ensuring that these services were up and running as soon as possible became top priority. Innovative mesh network strategies quickly brought back and even extended cell phone connectivity. This was a joint effort in which FEMA’s Innovation Team and volunteering squads participated together. FEMA also collaborated with many privately held enterprises to create dedicated communication squads to bring back mission critical infrastructure. This activity included providing Emergency Management (EM) teams with the necessary communication equipment.

Besides centralized web portals, disaster recovery squads made extensive use of the capabilities of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. The word ‘FEMA’ was mentioned online more than 5800 times every hour on Twitter. As a consequence of constant re-tweets, the number of FEMA users on Twitter crossed six million on October 29th. FEMA also put in place an online page dedicated to mitigating the spread of inaccurate information, especially through social platforms.

The digital space volunteering community used a variety of free and open source software for activities such as:

• Request tracking
• Supply inventory management
• Work flow monitoring

Additionally, FEMA used a WordPress page for:

• Sharing information
• Mapping impacted people to available resources
• Enlisting volunteers and allocating them to various tasks
• Requesting for and accepting charitable contributions

Many groups of volunteers worked collectively to geo-tag the data populated on online platforms. This activity was particularly helpful in updating maps with the latest facts and displaying important information such as:

• Areas with WI-FI access
• Regions with outages
• Blocked roads
• Hurricane impacted zones
• Places where recovery measures were underway

This was a collaborative effort achieved by crowd sourcing information both remotely as well as from the field.

Implementation

Official agencies in NYC had the necessary tools, knowledge base, skills, expertise and experience to confront a catastrophe of the scale and proportions of Hurricane Sandy. For over two years, the city had supported a policy to cultivate a strong presence in the digital space that gave disaster recovery personnel ample time to foster healthy relationships and create a sense of trust with the general public. NYC had also established strong ties with volunteer associations. All parties concerned were well acquainted with the relevant blueprints for action when disaster struck, which included sufficient buffer space for improvisation in the event of unforeseen complications and setbacks. Moreover, these improvised plans could be developed collaboratively by involving personnel from various focus groups.

Extensive training programs and certification for volunteers in digital strategies also helped in ensuring  crisis response solutions  of a certain standard. Virtual volunteers played a crucial role in supplying official teams with statements and situational reports, as well as filtering out the headlines from the vast morass of online traffic.

Once again, as in the case of the  Christchurch earthquake , the relevant training and knowledge transfer required for effectively engaging in EM solutions through social media was identified as a critical area for improvement. Another challenge was integrating social media with incident command structure and emergency operations center protocols.

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Coastal Impacts, Recovery, and Resilience Post-Hurricane Sandy in the Northeastern US

• Perspectives
• Open access
• Published: 25 August 2020
• Volume 43 , pages 1603–1609, ( 2020 )

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• Amanda L. Babson   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6713-6565 1 ,
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Post-Hurricane Sandy research has improved our understanding of coastal resilience during major storm events, accelerated sea level rise, and other climate-related factors, helping to enhance science-based decision-making, restoration, and management of coastal systems. The central question this special section examines is: “looking across the breadth of research, natural resource management actions and restoration projects post-Hurricane Sandy, what can we say about coastal impact, recovery, and resilience to prepare for increasing impacts of future storms?” These five studies, along with lessons from other published and unpublished research, advance our understanding beyond just the documentation of hurricane impacts but also highlights both natural and managed recovery, thereby advancing the developing field of coastal resilience.

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Introduction

Hurricane Sandy made landfall as a post-tropical cyclone on October 29, 2012, near Brigantine, New Jersey. Record levels of storm surge were recorded in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut with tropical storm force winds extending over an area approximately 1600 km in diameter. The storm affected twenty-four states, with disaster declarations made in 12 States and the District of Columbia. In addition to extensive loss of life and infrastructure damage, there were significant impacts on estuarine and coastal ecosystems throughout the region. The magnitude of Hurricane Sandy and the breadth of research on ecosystem resilience post-Hurricane Sandy provides an opportunity to learn about the response and recovery of coastal ecosystems following the storm and to apply the results to ecosystem management to prepare for future storms.

This perspectives paper sets the context for the special section, which includes studies of post-storm resilience, results of natural resource management actions, and restoration projects as part of the post-Hurricane Sandy coastal resilience efforts by the Department of the Interior (DOI). The section highlights some of the post-Sandy science undertaken to document and understand post-storm ecosystem recovery and resilience, and how systems function, followed by how our management actions can support resilience. The collective research provides an important foundation for managers with data, tools, and information necessary for future natural resource planning and adaptation efforts in preparing for future storms and sea level rise. The five papers in this special section were derived for Hurricane Sandy sessions at the Coastal Estuarine Research Federation Annual Conference (CERF 2017). Although these conference sessions occurred 5 years after Hurricane Sandy and substantial research results had been completed, some restoration projects were just beginning post-implementation monitoring. Some of that monitoring continues today, and we continue to learn from the results. These studies are applicable to other areas impacted by major hurricanes.

The concept of coastal ecosystem resilience has taken a central role in research, yet resilience continues to be challenging to define and measure. Below, we define resilience and explore a range of studies that improve our understanding of how resilience functions in northeastern coastal ecosystems, and how we can expand our management actions to support the resilience of these systems.

Resilience is defined differently by different users. One definition of resilience, “the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to changing conditions and withstand, respond to, and recover rapidly from disruptions,” is taken from Executive Order 13653 Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change (Executive Order 13653, 2013 ). This was the definition that the goals of the funding supporting a number of these studies aimed to address, yet the different authors in this special section may use variations of the definition. We note that the ecological definition of resilience “the amount of disturbance a system can absorb without changing states” (Holling 1973 ) is much narrower than the definition used here and that there is active literature (Fisichelli et al. 2016 , Stein et al. 2014 ) on resilience definitions and their role in which adaptation strategies are favored. The authors favor a broader definition because hurricane response efforts are often inclusive of other forms of resilience beyond ecological.

Improving the ecosystem resilience of the United States’ northeastern coastline is a massive and multifaceted endeavor. Developing accurate and sensitive performance metrics for detecting and assessing change in resilience is equally complex. In order to track project performance and ultimate contribution to coastal resilience, it is necessary to establish baseline or reference point(s) and a consistent monitoring approach to track changes through time (NAS 2017 ; NRC 2012 ; Winderl 2014 ). As these projects were developed following Hurricane Sandy, adaptation was a relatively new field and the adaptation strategy of increasing resilience was a goal for recovery funding. Whereas there is not a consistent strategy for evaluating resilience here, by exploring different facets, we build a foundation for more systematic evaluations in the future.

As we have been experiencing increased hurricane strength and effects, our understanding of the ecological impacts has been growing. In the Hurricane Sandy-impacted region, fewer than ten hurricanes made landfall between 1899 and 1992, and fewer than five of those were considered major (Neumann et al. 1993 ). The Gulf of Mexico and Southeast Atlantic Coast have experienced more hurricanes and thus, the research has been more extensive in these regions, with special journal issues on Hurricane Andrew (Pimm et al. 1994 ), the 1999 hurricane season that included Dennis, Floyd, and Irene (Paerl et al. 2000 ); the 2004 Florida hurricane season (Greening et al. 2006 ); and an assessment of social-ecological issues related to hurricanes and other coastal disasters (Adger et al. 2005 ). The impacts on ecosystems go beyond wind and inundation, with impacts due to salinity changes and loss of dissolved oxygen due to decaying organic matter deposited during the storm. Types of impacts also include oyster mortality (Munroe et al. 2013 ); mangrove mortality resulting in replacement of black mangrove with red mangrove species or converting to mudflat (Smith et al. 1994 ); bird losses including shorebird and wading bird mortality, reduction in resident bird density and nest, and rookery destruction (Roman et al. 1994 ). The state of the science is moving beyond just documenting changes, but to understanding recovery, and using this scientific basis to better inform management actions.

A greater focus on understanding hurricane impacts, recovery, and resilience is occurring in part because climate change is playing a role in increasing the scale of these impacts. While it is an active research field to better understand the relationship between hurricanes and climate change, and there is low confidence in the detection or attribution of observed trends in hurricane frequency or intensity generally, it is well documented that climate change has contributed to the increases in Atlantic hurricane activity since 1970 and that hurricane rainfall and intensity are projected to increase in the future (IPCC 2014 ; Hayhoe et al. 2018 ).

In response to Hurricane Sandy, the United States Congress passed the Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief Appropriations Act to provide supplemental funding to improve and streamline disaster assistance for Hurricane Sandy impacts. The DOI received approximately $445 million, post-sequestration, to respond to and recover from Hurricane Sandy impacts. In addition to the more traditional stream of financial support associated with disaster relief, directed towards cleanup and rebuilding based on damages caused by the storm, approximately $342 million was appropriated to support resilience. Funds were provided to restore and rebuild national parks, national wildlife refuges, and other Federal public assets with the goal of increasing the resilience and capacity of coastal habitat and infrastructure to withstand and reduce damage from storms (Arkema et al. 2019 ).

Initially, DOI directed resilience funds to projects that focused on rebuilding infrastructure, or monitoring, mapping, modeling, assessing, and forecasting as identified in the U.S. Geological Survey science plan for support of restoration and recovery in the wake of Hurricane Sandy (Buxton et al. 2013 ). DOI also conducted a competitive grant process among the DOI Bureaus to fund high priority science, in addition to coastal resilience projects. Subsequently, DOI partnered with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) to administer the Hurricane Sandy Coastal Resiliency Competitive Grant Program to support approximately $100 million in projects led by state and local governments, tribes, nonprofits, and universities. The extent and diversity of competitively funded projects was an opportunity to assess some of the many experimental approaches to increase ecosystem and/or community resilience; they provide the larger context for the synthesis of this paper and this special section highlights but a small fraction of them.

The National Park Service (NPS) initiated multiple scientific studies to assess the response and resilience of coastal park systems following Hurricane Sandy. These projects were not only directed at understanding the changes that occurred in parks as a result of the storm but also to develop new science on storm impacts and the natural resiliency of coastal systems. Many of the NPS projects involved enhancing existing long-term monitoring in the parks as part of the NPS Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Program (NPS 1992 ; NPS 2012 ), as well as creating baseline datasets needed to fulfill gaps in information needed for informed management. The NPS projects took place between 2013 and 2016 and provided a tremendous influx of new information, enhanced existing knowledge for park managers, and provided a better understanding of storm response and recovery that already has been, and continues to be incorporated into park management decisions and planning (NPS 2018 ).

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) resiliency projects that took place across eight national wildlife refuges or refuge complexes focused specifically on restoration and mitigation efforts, unlike the NPS projects, and fell within three primary categories: marsh and beach restoration, improving aquatic connectivity, and living shorelines. Restoration techniques included beneficial use of dredged sediment (thin to thick layer deposition), ditch remediation and runneling, eelgrass bed expansion, and barrier beach/back barrier ecosystem rebuilding. Aquatic connectivity projects included fish passage and culvert replacement (at two coastal refuges, with inland projects as well). Living shoreline projects included oyster bags, oyster castles, and hybrid measures such as wave attenuation structures across three refuges. Other techniques included invasive species control and removal of transmission poles and associated wires. These management and mitigation focused projects were complemented by scientific studies included in the Stronger Coast Project, which supported salt marsh integrity assessments, shoreline survey and analysis and integrated waterbird management monitoring.

Baseline Science and Monitoring

Hurricane Sandy provided an important lesson on the value of long-term baseline data and information and the additional need for important datasets. Baseline science collected consistently and following standardized methods over long periods of time are fundamental to understanding and identifying a change in the condition of natural resources and is necessary for informing conservation and land management decisions (Busch and Trexler 2003 ; Fancy and Bennetts 2012 ; Vaughan et al. 2001 ). Both the NPS I&M Division and the USFWS I&M Program reliably and consistently collect data throughout the park and national wildlife refuge systems, respectively. These data create the scientific basis for initiating new management practices and changing existing ones in parks and refuges (Fancy et al. 2009 ) and are critical in helping scientists and managers determine natural levels of variability versus human-induced changes.

One example of how baseline data collected for years prior to the storm improved our understanding of ecosystem resilience was at Fire Island National Seashore where the park experienced dramatic changes during the storm with the development of three breaches along the island (Hapke et al., 2017; van Ormondt et al. 2020). Two of the three breaches were closed immediately after the storm, but a breach that developed in the area of the Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness remained open to the Great South Bay due to its wilderness designation. Allowing this breach to remain open created an opportunity for the NPS to study the effects of breaches not only on the island itself but the surrounding Great South Bay (Gobler et al. 2019 ; Hinrichs et al. 2018 , Olin et al. 2019 ). The long-term monitoring and baseline research collected both before and after the storm supported the extensive environmental impact statement developed to help guide whether the NPS should keep the Fire Island Wilderness breach open or manually close it (NPS 2018 ). The analysis of both pre-and post-breach data provided a strong scientific basis for allowing the breach to remain open. Other coastal parks and refuges, such as Gateway National Recreation Area, also saw dramatic changes to their shorelines, beaches, dunes, and coastal wetlands, and both the NPS and USFWS had been collecting coastal shoreline change and geomorphological data in these areas for years prior to the storm, creating important pre- and post-storm datasets needed to quantify the recovery of these systems.

The NPS I&M program was able to collect post-storm data in a timely manner using well-established, standardized methods (Oakley et al. 2003 ; Perkins et al. 2016 ; Sergeant et al. 2012 ). This effort has provided insight into understanding the natural resiliency and recovery of park systems to a powerful storm event like Hurricane Sandy (Wilson et al. 2019 ).

Despite significant investments in restoration and resilience projects, it is uncommon for funding to be provided to monitor and assess whether projects have met their stated objectives. When funding for monitoring and assessment is available, assessment of ecological outcomes is more common than socio-economic ones (NAS 2017 ). For the DOI resilience projects, a common set of ecological and socio-economic metrics for evaluating projects was developed after project selection and implementation (DOI 2015 ; DOI-MEG 2015 ). As a result, a subset of the projects representing a diversity of geographies, scales, and resilience activities received funding to implement a monitoring effort through 2023. The goal of this monitoring and data collection effort is to collect data for ecological and socio-economic metrics aligned with each of these projects in order to provide a consistent set of data to evaluate the effectiveness of resilience projects to meet their stated objectives. The overarching goals were to (1) reduce the impacts of coastal storm surge, wave velocity, sea level rise, and associated natural threats on coastal and inland communities; (2) strengthen the ecological integrity and functionality of coastal/inland ecosystems to protect communities and to enhance fish and wildlife and their associated habitats, and (3) enhance our understanding of the impacts of storm events and identify cost-effective resilience tools that help mitigate the effects of future storms, sea level rise, and other phenomena related to climate change. Metrics were implemented for each of the resilience activities, marsh restoration, living shoreline restoration, beach and/or dune restoration, and restoration of aquatic connectivity. Examples of metrics for marsh restoration include marsh surface elevation or nekton abundance ; full tables of ecological metrics by activity are available in DOI ( 2015 ). The socio-economic metrics include three categories of metrics: (1) community competence and empowerment, (2) human health and safety, and (3) property and infrastructure protection and enhancement. An example of a human health and safety metric is a reduction in number of households exposed to risk of injury, casualty, or other health effects from a particular flood event with the project as compared to without ; full tables of socio-economic metrics by a goal are available in DOI-MEG ( 2015 ). The goal is to collect socio-economic data that is aligned with each of the ecological resilience activities, e.g., marsh restoration. The collection of consistent ecological and socio-economic data is intended to determine the ecological and social benefits and the cost-effectiveness of projects.

Sharing Lessons

Others have evaluated key lessons learned following hurricanes, especially within the disaster response communities including the need for improving communication alerts; finding housing solutions for those displaced; understanding the effect hurricanes have on children’s physical health, mental health, and schooling; rebuilding with inclusion; speeding funding and coordination among federal agencies; and embracing resilience as the new planning standard (Atallah and Hoban 2017 ). It is not so much about hurricane readiness as it is about planning, implementing, and improvising when the disaster does not fit the plan that was developed. An analysis of lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy for the NPS included natural resource recommendations allowing natural processes to prevail; planning for sediment movement; generating monitoring plans; and developing long-term landscape-scale habitat plans (Babson et al. 2016 ).

As a result of lessons learned from Hurricane Irene in 2011, the Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief Appropriations Act included amendments to the Stafford Act providing greater flexibility to FEMA for allowing more resilient rebuilding in Sandy-affected areas and in preparation for future storms (Clancy and Grannis 2013 ). Additionally, the issuance of executive orders and presidential policy directives after Hurricane Sandy helped focus the federal government on disaster resilience—coupling hazard mitigation and recovery efforts to break the damage-repair-damage cycle (GAO 2015 ).

The Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Taskforce ( 2013 ) recognized the importance of institutionalizing regional approaches for resilience planning and coordination of Hurricane Sandy resilience projects. The DOI Hurricane Sandy program responded to the need for rapid initiation in coastal resilience projects following the devastating coastal impacts of Hurricane Sandy. DOI established a Leadership Team to ensure coordination and communication across Bureaus occurred while providing program oversight and decision-making. Key insights and lessons learned post-implementation of the DOI Hurricane Sandy resilience projects recognize the importance of (1) communicating with the public about each project increased acceptance and at times helped inform project design; (2) designing projects for future conditions (e.g., sea level rise and increased storm intensity) and striving to restore functioning ecosystems and human infrastructure yielded both ecological and economic benefits; (3) possessing prior planning and design studies or identifying projects through a regional planning effort, typically resulted in fewer changes in scope and timeline; (4) establishing baseline conditions, pre- and post-event allowed for better evaluation of management strategies; (5) incorporating a detailed monitoring plan to assess project performance and providing funding to implement the monitoring plan was critical to project assessment; (6) applying ecological and socio-economic metrics was essential to evaluate project effectiveness consistently and was critical to determine best practices for the future; and finally (7) funding should be made available to support data management, analysis, and final report writing (NFWF 2019 ) in order to complete the cycle of project conception, design, implementation, and assessment.

Science, Outreach, and Communicating with Public

A major effort to communicate the post-Sandy science to resource managers, affected communities and the broader public helped build partner support and demonstrate the resilience benefits of the projects. Different messaging styles and platforms were used for different projects and audiences.

The NPS supported science communicators who developed project briefs, researcher profiles, videos, StoryMaps, web stories, and a social media campaign. Materials are available at https://www.nps.gov/im/ncbn/briefs-newsletters.htm (accessed June 23, 2020). An analysis of the communication challenges, during both storm preparation and recovery within three parks, includes recommendations to NPS staff and officials, on information availability and access, needed protocols and training, and opportunities for teaching moments with the public (Menezes et al. 2019 ).

The USFWS developed a centralized website with detailed project information and a StoryMap to serve as the spatial platform for basic information as well as the ability to drill down into project specifics (https://www.fws.gov/hurricane/sandy/index.cfm (accessed June 23, 2020)). From the website, different audiences could access fact sheets, blog posts, videos, and media coverage. Storytelling was effective in showing the benefits to wildlife and people. Benefits of engaging partners early and often were especially evident in large-scale efforts like Prime Hook Wildlife Refuge’s beach and salt marsh restoration or the Fire Island Wilderness breach. In considering restoration, resilience, and change, local partners that understand what is happening and why are more accepting of change that is part of adaptation. Going forward, continued communication with communities, demonstrating what worked, can build confidence in investments that utilize forward-thinking science and restoration and have a positive long-term return on investment. Likewise, communicating actions that did not work will provide insight into future decision-making and investments. An Evaluation of the Hurricane Sandy Resilience Program (NFWF 2019 ) found that projects improved ecological and human community resilience, filled key knowledge gaps, provided direct benefits, and catalyzed planning for future activities.

Overview of Papers in Special Section

The five papers included in this special section provide examples of multiple issues related to storm impacts, recovery, and resilience. Kang and Xia ( 2020 ) model circulation and a storm surge of the Maryland Coastal Bays: the interactions between winds, surge, and high river flow during the storm. Understanding the role of different drivers of flooding and hydrodynamic exchange on an event scale is transferable to other shallow estuaries and lagoons, especially those with multiple inlets. Yeates et al. ( 2020 ) provide a regional-scale analysis of the storm’s role in salt marsh surface elevation. Morris et al. ( 2020 ) model salt marsh change for four parks with differing sediment budgets, but more importantly, differing organic matter production. Burdick et al. ( 2019 ) provide an evaluation of a management tool, ditch remediation, one of a range of restoration techniques tested post-Hurricane Sandy, with the idea that restored salt marshes can better trap sediment and increase organic matter production, thus will be more resilient. Olin et al. ( 2019 ) explore the response of the Great South Bay, NY, following the breach of Fire Island, studying nekton and community assemblages.

Olin et al. ( 2019 ), along with many other studies, including Hinrichs et al. ( 2018 ) and Gobler et al. ( 2019 ), informed the Environmental Impact Statement recommendations (NPS 2018 ) for the Fire Island Wilderness breach. As other barrier islands breach in future storms, having the experience of monitoring the water quality, geomorphic response, and ecosystem benefits documented by allowing the Fire Island breach to remain open may help shape future decision-making, as well as monitoring plans. The demonstration of geomorphic resilience at Fire Island, NY, which is modeled by Wilson et al. ( 2019 ), is further explored by Psuty et al. ( 2020 ), documenting dune displacement and recovery at Fort Tilden, Gateway National Recreation Area, NY, including interactions with groins and bulkheads that disrupt sediment transport.

Given the variety of post-Sandy management actions to support resilience that relies on changes in marsh sediment budgets and distribution (e.g., ditch filling, thin layer deposition, removing tidal restrictions), Ganju ( 2019 ) makes the case for including sediment budgets in restoration planning, especially for salt marshes.

Other reports share results from broader Hurricane Sandy resilience projects, including Tinoco and Peterson ( 2016 ), that evaluate the effect of the Fire Island Wilderness breach on seagrasses. Several studies conducted at National Seashores along the mid-Atlantic coast conducted groundwater modeling to evaluate the effects of climate change on barrier island groundwater dynamics (Carleton et al. 2020 ; Fleming et al. in press ; Misut and Dressler in press ).

The collective post-Hurricane Sandy research presented in this special section, along with other post-Sandy research, advances our understanding of natural resiliency, as well as, the efficacy of building resilience through restoration and management applications.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank David Eisenhauer and Norbert Psuty for contributions to the manuscript and the National Wildlife Refuges and National Parks that hosted the projects. The paper was much improved thanks to peer review comments from Charles Roman and an anonymous reviewer.

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Babson, A.L., Bennett, R.O., Adamowicz, S. et al. Coastal Impacts, Recovery, and Resilience Post-Hurricane Sandy in the Northeastern US. Estuaries and Coasts 43 , 1603–1609 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-020-00809-x

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Goulart, H. M. D., Benito Lazaro, I., van Garderen, L., van der Wiel, K., Le Bars, D., Koks, E., and van den Hurk, B.: Compound flood impacts from Hurricane Sandy on New York City in climate-driven storylines, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 29–45, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-29-2024, 2024.

Coastal cities face significant exposure to storm induced compound coastal flooding ( Wahl et al. ,  2015 ; IPCC ,  2022 ; Woodruff et al. ,  2013 ; Dullaart et al. ,  2021 ) . In the context of storms, compound coastal flooding often involves heavy precipitation and high storm surges ( Wahl et al. ,  2015 ; Bevacqua et al. ,  2020 ) . Impacts of coastal storms include fatalities and damage to buildings and critical infrastructure (CI) ( Hallegatte et al. ,  2013 ; Chang ,  2016 ; Hall et al. ,  2019 ) . A recent example of a high impact event is Hurricane Sandy, which struck the east coast of the USA in October 2012. Coastal flooding in New York City (NYC) disrupted several CI systems, impacting millions of people ( SIRR ,  2013 ; Kunz et al. ,  2013 ) . In the aftermath of the event, and similarly in extreme events around the world, society was activated to reduce vulnerability to similar events in the future ( Rosenzweig and Solecki ,  2014 ) .

Climate change is projected to increase tropical cyclone (TC) precipitation rates and average intensity ( Knutson et al. ,  2020 ) , and rising sea levels are expected to exacerbate the impacts of coastal flooding ( Nicholls and Cazenave ,  2010 ; Hallegatte et al. ,  2013 ; Hinkel et al. ,  2014 ; Oppenheimer et al. ,  2019 ) . However, significant uncertainties remain regarding the influence of climate change on individual events at regional scales, as global statistics and thermodynamic arguments may not fully apply to local climatological situations ( Stott et al. ,  2016 ; Gutmann et al. ,  2018 ; Trenberth et al. ,  2018 ; Shepherd ,  2019 ) . Future projections of sea level rise (SLR) also carry significant uncertainties, especially regarding the timing of core processes, such as dynamical ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica ( IPCC ,  2021 ; Le Bars ,  2018 ) .

Besides climate change, internal variability within the climate system has a defining role in causing specific high impact events ( Deser et al. ,  2012 ; Schwarzwald and Lenssen ,  2022 ; Goulart et al. ,  2023 ; Hamed et al. ,  2023 ) . For storms specifically, previous studies have noted that frequency, tracks, and landfall positions exhibit large internal variability ( Done et al. ,  2014 ; Mei et al. ,  2015 ; Bony et al. ,  2015 ) . Considering impacts rather than meteorological conditions, internal variability has been identified as a major driver of differences, surpassing differences between emission scenarios ( Done et al. ,  2018 ) .

High impact events, like Sandy, carry great significance for society and societal decision-making, as evident from NYC's intensified climate adaptation plans in response to Sandy ( SIRR ,  2013 ; Aerts et al. ,  2013 ; Rosenzweig and Solecki ,  2014 ) and in policy-making processes elsewhere around the globe ( Gerritsen ,  2005 ; Martinez et al. ,  2019 ; Bartholomeus et al. ,  2023 ) . However, our understanding of the potential impacts of these events is limited to their rare historical occurrences. The impacts of similar events in the future will be different, due to the combination of climate change and internal variability ( Otto et al. ,  2018 ; Goulart et al. ,  2021 , 2023 ) , potentially hindering the effectiveness of adaptation measures based on historical events and outcomes ( Mechler et al. ,  2010 ; Haasnoot et al. ,  2020 ; Bartholomeus et al. ,  2023 ) . To comprehensively assess the risk of high impact events, it is essential to consider both climate change and internal variability, and develop a range of relevant and distinct scenarios ( Sutton ,  2019 ; Lehner and Deser ,  2023 ) . Storylines, plausible self-consistent developments of climatic events ( Shepherd et al. ,  2018 ) , have been previously used for impact assessment applications ( van den Hurk et al. ,  2023 a ) . For example, Qiu et al. ( 2022 ) combined a historical TC with global warming projections, sea level rise, and riverine flood to stress test compound floods in China’s Pearl River Delta, and Koks et al. ( 2023 ) combined historical high impact storms with different scenarios of sea level rise and future socioeconomic developments to assess coastal flooding damages on critical infrastructure and explore possible adaptation solutions.

In this paper, we employ an event based storyline approach to explore alternative realisations of Sandy and to assess the societal impacts of these alternative events. We study the unfolding of Hurricane Sandy under different conditions using a model chain including climate, compound flooding, and impact components to establish a clear connection between cause and effect and to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the potential implications associated with these events ( Shepherd et al. ,  2018 ; Sillmann et al. ,  2020 ) . We build storylines of Sandy, combining spectrally nudged storyline data, sea level rise scenarios, and storm track manipulation, which together account for the effects of climate change and internal variability (Fig.  1 a; Table  1 ). Our modelling framework combines multiple models that cover the chain of events from the meteorological and climatological characteristics to their flood hazards and to the resulting societal impacts (Fig.  1 b). As an impact metric, we focus on the exposure of buildings and critical infrastructure assets on the coast of the NYC metropolitan region.

Table 1 Summary of the scenarios considered in this study, the corresponding numbers and names of members in each scenario (see text for acronym definitions), and in which section they are explained.

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Figure 1 Panel  (a) is an illustration of the alternative event storylines considered in this study. Left: the spectrally nudged storylines with different levels of global warming (i.e. climate scenarios); middle: the sea level rise (SLR) scenarios; right: the maximised precipitation (MP) scenario. Panel  (b) shows a modelling framework connecting meteorological and climatic conditions, such as wind speed and mean sea level pressure (MSLP), to flood modelling and critical infrastructure (CI) exposure.

2.1  Case study

Sandy began as a tropical depression in the southwestern Caribbean Sea on 22 October 2012 and intensified while moving northward. It peaked as a Category 3 hurricane over Jamaica and Cuba with wind speeds of 50 m s −1 and a minimum pressure of 954 hPa. The storm caused heavy rainfall and flooding in multiple countries. It encountered a blocking high and a low-pressure system, which halted its northward movement and caused it to turn westward and intensify again ( Hall and Sobel ,  2013 ; Kunz et al. ,  2013 ; SIRR ,  2013 ) .

On 29 October 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit the US east coast, causing unprecedented coastal flooding in the NYC metropolitan region. Most of the flooding was caused by a high storm surge, but inland precipitation also modestly contributed to the flooding ( SIRR ,  2013 ; Kunz et al. ,  2013 ; Yates et al. ,  2014 ) . The event resulted in 43 fatalities and caused USD 19 billion in damage in NYC alone ( Kunz et al. ,  2013 ) . Power outages affected 21.3 million people due to cascading effects in the power system ( SIRR ,  2013 ; Kunz et al. ,  2013 ; Yates et al. ,  2014 ) . In this work, we focus the analysis of the impacts of Sandy on the coastal area surrounding the NYC metropolitan region, including parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, as seen in Fig.  A1 .

2.2  Alternative event storylines

The scenarios used in this work to build alternative event storylines of Sandy are summarised in Table  1 and are explained in the following sections.

2.2.1  Climate scenarios: spectrally nudged storylines

Spectral nudging ( von Storch et al. ,  2000 ) is a technique used to recreate historical climate events by forcing the large-scale atmospheric patterns in climate models with reanalysis data while allowing small-scale processes to respond freely ( Schubert-Frisius et al. ,  2017 ) . We use the event based spectrally nudged storylines dataset from van Garderen et al. ( 2021 ) , created using the general circulation model (GCM) ECHAM version 6.1.00 ( Stevens et al. ,  2013 ) . In this setup, the large-scale free atmosphere (minimum wavelength of 2000 km at altitudes above 750 hPa) is spectrally nudged towards the atmospheric divergence and vorticity derived from the NCEP R1 reanalysis data ( Kalnay et al. ,  1996 ) to reproduce historical climate events. By nudging the modelled atmospheric large-scale patterns towards reanalysis, the model simulations are reproductions of historical large-scale weather events, though leaving small-scale processes and the dynamics of the lower atmosphere to respond freely ( van Garderen and Mindlin ,  2022 ) . This latter point enables the model to respond to different climatological background states which have been prescribed to the model. ECHAM6 is the atmospheric component of the MPI-ESM coupled model ( Tebaldi et al. ,  2021 ) used in the Sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). It has a T255 horizontal spectral resolution and 95 vertical levels (T255L95). More details on the ECHAM6 model and the spectral nudging technique are available in Schubert-Frisius et al. ( 2017 ) .

The spectrally nudged storylines dataset consists of three climatic worlds governed by different global warming levels ( van Garderen and Mindlin ,  2022 ) :

a counterfactual scenario assuming pre-industrial global temperature values (13.6  ∘ C; referred to as “PI”)

a present-day scenario in which global temperature is prescribed from observed conditions in 2010 (14.28  ∘ C; referred to as “PD”), and

a counterfactual scenario assuming a global temperature 2  ∘ C above the pre-industrial value (15.15  ∘ C; referred to as “2C”).

The different climatic scenarios were created by modifying model sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations. For the PD simulations, SSTs and sea ice concentrations were obtained from the NCEP R1 reanalysis data, and the GHG forcing (CO 2 , CH 4 , N 20 , and CFCs) was based on observed values ( Meinshausen et al. ,  2011 ) . For the PI simulations, the SST climatological warming pattern (calculated as the 2000–2009 average of CMIP6 historical simulations minus the average of CMIP6 piControl simulations) was subtracted from the NCEP R1 reanalysis pattern, and GHG forcing was based on observed concentrations from the year 1890. For the 2C simulations, SSTs and GHG values were obtained from outputs of the MPI-ESM model using the shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) 5-8.5 scenario ( O'Neill et al. ,  2016 ) between 2044 and 2053, which corresponds to a global temperature of 2  ∘ C above pre-industrial levels. All simulations use the same land use and aerosol forcing. Each climatic scenario has three members (generated using different starting spin-up times; see van Garderen ,  2022 ) which are used to investigate the consistence of forced changes and the influence of internal variability on the local and regional conditions within the large-scale nudged events. As such, we investigated three alternative realisations of Sandy (internal variability) within three distinct climate scenarios (climate change: PI, PD, and 2C). More details on the spectrally nudged storyline datasets are available in van Garderen et al. ( 2021 ) and van Garderen ( 2022 ) .

2.2.2  Sea level rise scenarios

We explore the consequences of the Sandy landfall for different SLR scenarios (Fig.  1 a) derived from the sixth assessment report (AR6) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ,  2021 ) . SLR projections have considerable uncertainties regarding the timing of core processes, which leads to different SLR estimations at distinct time periods despite the same global temperature increases ( Le Bars ,  2018 ; IPCC ,  2021 ) . Consequently, we explore local estimations of SLR for NYC under a global 2  ∘ C warming at different time periods and considering only processes for which projections can be made with at least medium confidence ( IPCC ,  2021 ) . The estimations result from multi-model projections with a global mean temperature increase between 1.75 and 2.25  ∘ C during 2080–2100 with respect to pre-industrial levels. They also include different time frames to account for the temporal variability in SLR for the same temperature increase ( IPCC ,  2021 ) . The median SLR values in NYC are 71 cm for 2100 (referred to as SLR71 scenario) and 101 cm for 2150 (referred to as SLR101 scenario). These increases are relative to local mean sea level from 1995–2014, which account for the effects of local land subsidence. The SLR scenarios are combined with the water levels from Sect.  2.3.1 to compute flood levels in the alternative realisations of Sandy under SLR.

2.2.3  Maximised precipitation scenarios

As discussed previously, the exact tracks of hurricanes are subject to substantial internal variability of the climate system ( Done et al. ,  2014 ; Mei et al. ,  2015 ; Yamada et al. ,  2019 ) , with varying consequences for society. It can be considered physically plausible that Sandy could have made landfall in a slightly different, but nearby, location, leading to potentially (very) different impacts. Considering this uncertainty, we explore worst-case scenarios resulting from internal variability to obtain impact-relevant outcomes ( Sutton ,  2019 ; Schwarzwald and Lenssen ,  2022 ) .

We manipulate each simulated storm track from Sect.  2.2.1 to create another alternative realisation of the event (Fig.  1 a). These track manipulations are designed to explore the consequences of maximised precipitation over NYC, due to alternative landfall locations. For that, we calculate the precipitation sum aggregated in a zone of 4 ∘ surrounding the storm centre from 9 h before landfall to 9 h after landfall in the USA. We identify the grid cell on land with the highest cumulative precipitation during this time window and subsequently realign the entire storm track horizontally (shifting storm track latitudes and longitudes) to ensure that this precipitation maximum is located above the study area (Fig.  A3 ). We refer to these projections as maximised precipitation scenarios.

We use a tracking algorithm based on Baatsen et al. ( 2015 ) and Bloemendaal et al. ( 2019 ) . For every time step, the initial eye position of the storm is determined by the historical storm data from the IBTrACS dataset ( Knapp et al. ,  2010 ) . We then find the location of the maximum vorticity within a 5 ∘ × 5 ∘ box around the eye position and update the location if it has a lower mean sea level pressure (MSLP) than the initial eye position. After that, we determine the minimum MSLP position within a 2.5 ∘ × 2.5 ∘ box around the updated eye location and select it as the final eye position.

2.3  Modelling framework

2.3.1  tides and storm surges modelling.

Tides and storm surges are dynamically simulated using the Global Tide and Surge Model (GTSM) v4.1 ( Muis et al. ,  2020 ) . GTSM is a calibrated global hydrodynamic model based on Delft3D Flexible Mesh ( Kernkamp et al. ,  2011 ) . It has an unstructured grid with varying resolution, finer near the coasts (2 km in this study) and coarser in the deep ocean (25 km). We use data from the General Bathymetric Chart of Oceans (GEBCO) 2014 dataset ( GEBCO ,  2014 ) with a 30 arcsec resolution as input for the bathymetry. GTSM uses tide-generating forces and simulates storm surges based on wind speed and atmospheric pressure forcings. The combined effects of tides and storm surges determine the total water levels. We force the model with MSLP and wind speed data from Sect.  2.2.1 and 2.2.3 to generate water levels in the study area. We do not explicitly force the timing between peak surge and high tides, as all runs have peak surges occurring within the high tide period (Fig.  A2 ).

2.3.2  Compound coastal flooding modelling

We simulate the compound flooding on the study area with the Super-Fast INundation of CoastS (SFINCS) model ( Leijnse et al. ,  2021 ) . SFINCS is a reduced-physics solver used to simulate compound (pluvial, fluvial, and coastal) flooding in coastal areas. It solves simplified equations of mass and momentum to simulate overland flow in two dimensions, accurately estimating flooding while being computationally efficient ( Leijnse et al. ,  2021 ) . SFINCS incorporates physical processes, such as spatially varying friction and infiltration, and has been used previously to assess the compound flood impact of TCs ( Leijnse et al. ,  2021 ; Sebastian et al. ,  2021 ; Eilander et al. ,  2023 b ) . A full description of the model is available in Leijnse et al. ( 2021 ) .

In this study, we set up the SFINCS model and process the input data using the Python package HydroMT ( Eilander et al. ,  2023 a ) . For surface elevation we use modern and high resolution datasets publicly available: the Continuously Updated DEM (CUDEM, both 1 / 9 and 1 / 3  arcsec resolution) ( Amante et al. ,  2023 ) and the 0.3048 m resolution NYC Topobathy Lidar DEM ( OCM Partners ,  2017 ) for the coastal topography and bathymetry of the NYC region. For the areas where those datasets are not available, we use the global datasets FABDEM ( Hawker et al. ,  2022 ) and GEBCO ( GEBCO ,  2014 ) to fill missing data. The roughness coefficients used in our models are obtained from the Copernicus Global Land Service ( Buchhorn et al. ,  2020 ) and infiltration data from the GCN250 dataset ( Jaafar et al. ,  2019 ) . We run SFINCS at 50 m resolution and we force the model with precipitation and water levels from the previous steps to obtain flood maps of the study area. We also simulate the events with precipitation and coastal water levels separately to estimate their contribution to compound flooding.

2.3.3  Societal impact modelling: critical infrastructure data and exposure

To assess the potential societal consequences of alternative realisations of Hurricane Sandy, we perform an exposure analysis of the built environment, accounting for both CI assets and buildings. The assessment involves overlaying geospatial information of buildings and assets with flooding maps, which allows evaluation of the built environment exposure to flooding.

Apart from all buildings within the study area, our study includes seven major CI systems as identified by Nirandjan et al. ( 2022 ) : energy, transportation, telecommunication, water, waste, education, and health. To obtain the necessary CI data, we rely on the widely accessible OpenStreetMap (OSM) database ( Haklay and Weber ,  2008 ) . This source has been utilised in multiple studies ( Koks et al. ,  2019 ; Nirandjan et al. ,  2022 ; Koks et al. ,  2023 ; Liu et al. ,  2023 ) , demonstrating its suitability for our purposes. Information gaps exist within OSM and the level of completeness varies substantially across the world ( Herfort et al. ,  2023 ) . For NYC, the fraction of buildings included has been estimated to be between 55 % ( Zhou et al. ,  2022 ) and 80 % ( Herfort et al. ,  2023 ) . For CI assets, only very limited coverage estimates are available. More than 90 % of all roads in NYC are estimated to be included ( Kazakov et al. ,  2023 ) .

Different CI assets may exhibit varying responses to distinct flood levels. Unfortunately, comprehensive information regarding the vulnerability of CI assets to specific flood levels is limited ( Zio ,  2016 ) and, in particular, the cost of reconstruction and replacement of CI assets is not available for New York City. Inspired by ( Koks et al. ,  2019 ) , we adopted a discrete and qualitative approach by dividing water levels into three categories: low (0.15–0.5 m), medium (0.5–1 m), and high ( >  1 m). This approach allows us to quantify the number of exposed assets in each water level category and how it changes under different scenarios, identifying hotspots of impacts, without trying to assign specific monetary value.

3.1  Alternative meteorological event realisations and climate change scenarios

We evaluate the potential impact of varying global warming levels and internal variability on Sandy. All nine runs (three storylines, three members each) have alternative realisations of Hurricane Sandy that are close to the observed event. The storm tracks begin over the Caribbean Sea, move along the US east coast, and turn towards the US west coast (Fig.  2 a). All tracks have landfalls slightly north of the observed landfall, but their mutual differences are minor, and no coherent response of track position to the imposed warming levels is detected, which is to be expected when using spectrally nudged data as the tracks are conditioned by the large-scale weather systems of NCEP ( von Storch et al. ,  2000 ) . Meteorological features match the observed event well in the region of interest, with some minor underrepresentation of the maximum wind speed (Fig.  2 b and c). The simulations miss the peak intensity of the storm over the Caribbean (between 24 and 26 October). This discrepancy is also present in other datasets, such as the spectrally nudged global historical dataset (ECHAM_SN) ( Schubert-Frisius et al. ,  2017 ) and two modern reanalysis datasets (Fig.  A4 ): ERA5 ( Hersbach et al. ,  2020 ) and MERRA-2 ( Gelaro et al. ,  2017 ) .

Figure 2 Storm tracks of observed Sandy (IBTrACS, solid black line) and of alternative realisations of Sandy  (a) . Time series of the alternative realisations for minimum mean sea level pressure (MSLP)  (b) , maximum wind speed  (c) , and mean precipitation around the storm eye  (d) . PI, PD, and 2C climate scenarios are represented by blue, orange, and red, respectively, while the three members are represented by solid, dashed, and dotted lines. The grey dashed–dotted line represents the observed values for storm track, MSLP, and wind speed based on IBTrACS.

When averaged across each climate scenario, MSLP and maximum wind speed show no significant changes (Fig.  2 b and c). Peak precipitation rates during 24–26 October show significant gains due to climate change (Fig.  2 d where the PI members (blue) lie below the 2C members (brown) for days 24–26), with an ensemble mean 14 % increase from PI to PD and a 5 % increase from PD to 2C. During landfall over the study area, the ensemble mean increase from PI to PD is 4 % and the ensemble mean increase from PD to 2C is 9 %. However, the absolute changes are substantially smaller than during the peak period and there is overlapping between the different climate scenarios (shaded area in Fig.  2 d). Increases in precipitation generally occur for the most extreme precipitation rates ( Gutmann et al. ,  2018 ) , but by this point, the storm is transitioning into an extratropical (ET) storm, resulting in overall lower precipitation intensity. Thus, we detect some potential climate change signals over the study area, but these signals may also be the result of internal variability. Notably, the considerable differences in the simulations, both across climate scenarios and within them, make them important for further investigation. We therefore focus our subsequent analyses on exploring this variability and its impacts on the study area, without attributing changes to climate change.

3.2  Flood hazards

The variability among the alternative realisations of Sandy results in a wide range of flooding events (see Fig.  3 a). Some realisations exhibit up to 3.5 times more flooding volume in the study area than others. We illustrate the compound nature of the flood events produced by the storms, as both precipitation and surge contribute to the flooding volume in all cases. The varying characteristics of rainfall patterns and storm surge levels lead to a diversity in flood scenarios, some of which are primarily driven by precipitation, while others are dominated by storm surge. The compound effects of the storm indicate that for the flood volume, storm surge and inland precipitation have minimal interaction closely resembling the simple combination of each component modelled separately. In some coastal areas and wetlands the compound effects lead to a relatively small reduction in flood volume compared with the direct aggregation of precipitation- and surge-only events.

Figure 3 Panel  (a) shows compound flood volumes over the study area for each event (dark red dots), compared with the corresponding univariate surge or rain induced flood volumes represented by bars. Light blue and pink bars indicate surge- and precipitation-driven floods, respectively. Flood hazard maps for the largest surge dominated  (b)  and precipitation dominated  (c) flooding volume storylines.

The spatial distribution of flood hazards exhibits distinct characteristics for surge dominated and precipitation dominated events. Surge dominated flood events primarily affect coastal areas and result in high flood levels (Fig.  3 b). Conversely, precipitation dominated flood events have a broader spatial extent, reaching into inland areas, but typically exhibit lower flood depths (Fig.  3 c).

3.3  Evaluation of sea level rise scenarios

Next we investigate the flood hazards of the alternative realisations of Sandy for the different SLR scenarios. All simulations present an increase in flood volume as sea levels rise (Fig.  4 a). SLR71 results in an average increase in flood volume by approximately threefold, ranging from 2.2 to 3.7 times higher than the corresponding baseline simulations. SLR101 increases flood volume by 4.2 times, ranging from 3 to 5.6 times higher than the baseline simulations. For each SLR scenario, higher increases occur for higher initial flood volume caused by surges. (See bars, dashed lines, and slope coefficients in Fig.  4 a.) Most of the flood volume increase occurs on the coast (Fig.  4 b).

Figure 4 Panel  (a) shows compound flood volumes over the study area in each event for the baseline (light green circles), 71 cm sea level rise (SLR71) (blue crosses), and 101 cm sea level rise (SLR101) (dark blue squares) scenarios. The corresponding bars show the increase in flood volume for each scenario due to storm surge only. (The difference between bar and symbol is the flood volume by precipitation.) Dashed lines show the trends and regression coefficients for each SLR scenario. Panel  (b) comprises flood hazard maps showing the difference in flood between SLR101 and baseline scenarios for the same event.

3.4  Evaluation of maximised precipitation scenarios

The effects of manipulating the tracks of the alternative realisations of Sandy to maximise the precipitation over the study area results in significant flood volume increases. The manipulated storm tracks are depicted in Fig.  A5 . Figure  5 a shows that the average flood volume increases by a factor of 2.5, ranging from 1.6 to 3.7 times the volume in the corresponding events with original tracks (baseline). Additionally, there is significantly less variation in flood volume in the manipulated storms, with all realisations but one being in the range 4 ± 0.3 × 10 8  m 3 , while the baseline shows a range between 0.6 and 2.5×10 8  m 3 . Therefore, although most realisations produce similar precipitation volumes, the landfall position determines the flood volumes in the study area. The increased flood volumes due to the MP scenario occur extensively across the study area, but coastal areas show a moderate decrease in inundation levels (Fig.  5 b). This is due to the MP scenario setup, where inland precipitation over the study area is prioritised. In most realisations of Sandy, the heaviest precipitation occurs on the left-hand side of the storm, which is also characterised by winds blowing away from the coast, resulting in lower surge levels when moved over the study area.

Figure 5 Panel  (a) is similar to Fig.  4 a but for the maximised precipitation (MP) scenario. Compound flood volumes for baseline (violet circles) and MP (purple crosses). The corresponding bars indicate flood volume due to precipitation only. (The difference between bar and symbol is the flood volume by storm surge.) Panel  (b) is similar to Fig.  4 b, but the difference in flood is between MP and baseline scenarios for the same event.

3.5  Critical infrastructure exposure

In this section, we assess the exposure of CI and buildings to flood hazards caused by the alternative realisations of Sandy. The MP scenario results in the highest number of flooded assets, typically 2.9 times the baseline (Fig.  6 a). Following this is the SLR101, which shows a 2.2-fold increase, and the SLR71, with a 1.8-fold increase. This is due to the extensive reach of precipitation. As a result, most of the increase in the MP occurs in the low water level category (5.4 times), while SLR71 and SLR101, surge dominated scenarios, increase 1.5 and 1.6 times, respectively. For medium water levels, SLR71 (2.9 times) and SLR101 (3.3) show higher increases than MP (2.8). For high water levels, SLR101 shows the highest increase, 8.7 times the baseline. SLR71 follows with a 4.5-fold increase, and the MP, with a 2.6-fold increase. Among the CI systems, buildings and roads show the highest number of exposed assets (Fig.  A6 ). SLR101 leads to the largest increase in number of flooded assets across the CI systems compared with the baseline (Fig.  6 b). Power infrastructure has the highest increase in exposure, though education, telecom, and wastewater systems also see considerable increases. The impacts of SLR scenarios are predominantly driven by storm surges, impacting mostly coastal assets with high water levels (Fig.  6 c). In contrast, the MP scenario, where flooding is primarily driven by precipitation, has a spatially extensive impact on assets but at low water levels (Fig.  6 d).

Figure 6 Panel  (a) shows the total number of flooded critical infrastructure (CI) assets under different water level categories for the baseline, maximised precipitation (MP), 71 cm sea level rise (SLR71), and 101 cm sea level rise (SLR101) scenarios. Low (0.05–0.5 m), medium (0.5–1 m), and high ( >  1 m) water levels are represented by light pink, light red and dark red, respectively. Panel  (b) shows the increase in the number of flooded CI assets with respect to the baseline. MP, SLR71, and SLR101 scenarios are represented by circles, crosses, and squares. The difference in exposed assets under various scenarios: (c)  power assets between the SLR101 and baseline scenarios and (d)  road assets between the MP and baseline scenarios.

In this paper, we use storylines to develop alternative yet plausible realisations of Hurricane Sandy as it made landfall in NYC, accounting for effects of climate change and internal variability. Our objective is to increase our understanding of Sandy and its impacts beyond the single historical occurrence and to obtain climate information that is relevant for risk assessment ( Sutton ,  2019 ) . We develop a modelling framework spanning meteorological conditions, compound flooding, and CI flood exposure, allowing for a comprehensive analysis of the event onset and consequences.

Compound floods on the study area over the range of alternative realisations result from a combination of storm surges and precipitation. However, the contribution of each hazard differs substantially among the realisations and scenarios explored, demonstrating the importance of compound thinking in coastal flooding ( van den Hurk et al. ,  2023 b ) . Surge dominated floods concentrate in coastal regions with high water depths, while precipitation dominated floods cover widespread land areas with shallow water depths. We calculate the exposure of critical infrastructure assets to floods, as a proxy of potential societal impacts of alternative realisations of Sandy. Exposed CI assets vary according to the prevailing flood hazards of each event: precipitation dominated events result in a considerable increase in the number of exposed assets, mostly at low water levels. Conversely, surge dominated events concentrate exposure on coastal assets, particularly at high water levels. The variability in exposed CI assets illustrates the range of impacts that NYC could have experienced across different (plausible) event unfoldings.

We show that SLR substantially increases flood volumes for all alternative realisations of Sandy, with approximately 1 m of sea level rise leading to a 4.2-fold increase in flood volume. This is consistent with literature expressing high confidence in the role of sea level rise as a prominent climate change factor explaining tropical cyclone impacts ( Lin et al. ,  2016 ; Knutson et al. ,  2020 ) . We manipulate the tracks of the alternative realisations of Sandy to maximise precipitation during landfall over the study area. This way, we explore the internal variability of the landfall location to search for worst-case scenarios that are relevant for society ( Sutton ,  2019 ; Schwarzwald and Lenssen ,  2022 ; Lehner and Deser ,  2023 ) . This approach leads to an average 2.5-fold increase in flood volume. In contrast to changes attributed to climate change, which occur over longer timescales, internal variability applies to present-day climate conditions. This requires a different risk impact perspective and demonstrates the importance of internal variability in quantifying risks of high impact events.

Sandy becomes wetter during its peak in the Caribbean in warmer scenarios, yet the precipitation increase over the NYC metropolitan area due to climate change is comparatively smaller and could result from internal variability. Previous studies have found a global increase in precipitation for TCs with climate change ( Hill and Lackmann ,  2011 ; Patricola and Wehner ,  2018 ; Knutson et al. ,  2020 ) , for extratropical cyclones ( Liu et al. ,  2018 ) , and specifically for Sandy ( Yates et al. ,  2014 ; Gutmann et al. ,  2018 ) . The largest increases in precipitation occur generally during extreme precipitation rates ( Gutmann et al. ,  2018 ) , which are not prevalent at Sandy's landfall over NYC. Yates et al. ( 2014 ) found higher precipitation during landfall under 4  ∘ C warming but modest increases under 2  ∘ C warming. We do not find significant changes for wind speed, MSLP, and track position, which could be due to the spectral nudging method where the divergence, vorticity, and large-scale weather systems are set to match the reanalysis ( von Storch et al. ,  2000 ; Weisse and Feser ,  2003 ) . Yates et al. ( 2014 ) also found no significant changes in wind speed and MSLP, while other studies suggest that the core pressure of Sandy could decrease in warmer scenarios ( Lackmann ,  2015 ; Gutmann et al. ,  2018 ) . Conversely, we observe significant differences between the alternative realisations of Sandy during landfall over the study area. Given our study aim of exploring societal impacts in alternative realisations of Sandy, we decided to focus on the internal variability of the simulations during landfall rather than on the direct effects of climate change on the entire storm lifetime.

We rely on the use of one single model for each step in our framework. More robust results can be achieved with a wider selection of models to account for model uncertainty. The spectrally nudged storylines have three ensemble members, and while they are suitable for the purposes of our study, more ensemble members improve results robustness. The simulated storms underrepresent the maximum wind speed and minimum MSLP during the TC peak over the Caribbean and to a lesser extent during landfall. Similar discrepancies are seen for the other reanalyses tested, indicating the data are within the same range of performance of other reanalyses and models. Peak TC activity is often underrepresented in reanalyses due to limited model resolution and dependence on parameterised processes ( Hodges et al. ,  2017 ) . ECHAM6.1 has an approximate resolution of 0.5 ∘ , and studies have shown that higher horizontal resolutions lead to better modelled TCs ( Knutson et al. ,  2020 ) , higher surge heights ( Bloemendaal et al. ,  2019 ) , and better reproduction of precipitation extremes ( Prein et al. ,  2016 ) . However, spectrally nudged model simulations do resolve TCs better than free running simulations ( Feser and Barcikowska ,  2012 ; Schubert-Frisius et al. ,  2017 ) . Our warmest storyline is based on SST and GHG projections of a 2  ∘ C above pre-industrial levels scenario, but due to indirect aerosol influence, the actual temperature increase is 1.55  ∘ C, making it a conservative estimation of the climate change signal ( van Garderen and Mindlin ,  2022 ) . Warmer climate scenarios can provide extra insight into the effects of global warming on storms, as seen in Yates et al. ( 2014 ) where the strongest precipitation increases occurred for the + 4  ∘ C scenario. We assume temporal independence between the climate scenarios and the SLR scenarios because it allows us to explore more (yet plausible) scenarios. However, previous studies have found that assuming independence between SLR and TCs can underestimate flood hazard ( Lockwood et al. ,  2022 ) .

Assessing the risks of high impact events in a changing world requires methods that extend beyond historical observations ( Otto et al. ,  2018 ; Sutton ,  2019 ; van den Hurk et al. ,  2023 b ) . Qiu et al. ( 2022 ) and Koks et al. ( 2023 ) showed that presenting impact changes in coastal flooding through alternative scenarios of historical storms provides clear and accessible information for decision makers. According to our findings, healthcare decision makers may focus on future asset exposure to surge levels of a future Sandy combined with sea level rise, while road infrastructure decision makers may prioritize the immediate exposure of roads to an alternative Sandy with high precipitation over the study area. Adaptation solutions would differ for each case, for example, sea barriers against surges and expanding urban green spaces for high precipitation. The use of societal-relevant scenarios, including climate change and internal variability scenarios, along with an impact-assessment framework, provides relevant and accessible information that can be integrated into decision-making to achieve effective adaptation solutions ( Aerts et al. ,  2014 ; Jongman ,  2018 ) .

High impact events affect society and influence decision-making. In this study, we create alternative realisations of Sandy to understand the impacts of the event on critical infrastructure over the NYC metropolitan region under different scenarios. The scenarios are developed to account for the effects of climate change (on the storm and through sea level rise) and internal variability (random variations in the storm's location, intensity, and shape in present-day climate). Our framework allows us to simulate all the contributing factors of the event and to disentangle its main components, from driving meteorological and climatological conditions to compound flooding and impacts.

We find that sea level rise is the most consistent climate change component to increase Sandy's flood volumes, with an average 4.2-fold increase for 1 m of sea level rise. However, internal variability, represented by both results from a climate model ensemble and the manipulation of the storm's landfall position, also considerably increases flood volumes. For the maximised precipitation scenario, flood volumes exhibit an average increase of 2.5 times compared with the baseline. While all alternative realisations cause compound floods, the contribution of each flood hazard greatly influences the extent and depth of these events, resulting in distinct impacts on critical infrastructure. Precipitation dominated realisations lead to the highest number of exposed assets, but mainly at low water levels. Surge dominated events affect mostly coastal assets, with high water levels.

The considerable differences in hazards and impacts demonstrate the potential of building societal-relevant scenarios that provide plausible realisations of a historical high impact event under diverse circumstances. By understanding the potential changes in the event's impacts and their underlining scenarios, decision makers are better informed to make effective adaptation solutions, particularly in a changing climate.

Figure A1 Map of the northeast coast of the USA and our study area (shaded dark-grey area).

Figure A2 Surge levels for alternative realisations of Sandy (coloured lines). The high tide periods are highlighted with grey background colour.

Figure A3 Storm track manipulation based on the maximum precipitation location. Blue squares indicate precipitation levels (in millimetres), dashed lines indicate storm tracks, the red dot indicates maximum precipitation, and the cross shows the location of NYC. In the left-side panel, the two dashed lines overlap completely.

Figure A4 Similar to Fig.  2 . The historical spectrally nudged datasets (ECHAM_SN), ERA5, Merra2, and IBTrACS are represented by blue, orange, green, and dashed-dotted black lines, respectively. No IBTrACS information for precipitation.

Figure A5 Similar to Fig.  2 a but for manipulated storm tracks from MP scenario.

Figure A6 Similar to Fig.  6 but for different CI systems.

The code for this experiment is available at https://github.com/dumontgoulart/sandy_impacts_storylines (last access: 12 December 2023; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10209795 , Goulart ,  2023 ). SFINCS is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10118583 ( van Ormondt ,  2023 ) and HydroMT is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10143631 ( Eilander et al. ,  2023 c ) .

GEBCO is available at https://www.gebco.net/data_and_products/gridded_bathymetry_data/#global ( GEBCO ,  2014 ) , FABDEM at https://doi.org/10.5523/bris.25wfy0f9ukoge2gs7a5mqpq2j7 ( Hawker and Neal ,  2021 ) , and CUDEM at https://doi.org/10.25921/ds9v-ky35 ( Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado ,  2014 ) . The spectrally nudged storylines are available upon request from Linda van Garderen.

HMDG, KvdV, and BvdH contributed to the concept of the study. HMDG conducted the research and edited the manuscript. LvG, DLB, EK, and IBL provided the data. IBL provided the GTSM model and EK the scripts for critical infrastructure. All authors discussed the analysis and results, and revised the manuscript. BvdH, KvdW, and EK supervised the work.

The contact author has declared that none of the authors has any competing interests.

Publisher’s note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this paper. While Copernicus Publications makes every effort to include appropriate place names, the final responsibility lies with the authors.

This article is part of the special issue “Methodological innovations for the analysis and management of compound risk and multi-risk, including climate-related and geophysical hazards (NHESS/ESD/ESSD/GC/HESS inter-journal SI)”. It is not associated with a conference.

This research has been supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 820712 (project RECEIPT, REmote Climate Effects and their Impact on European sustainability, Policy and Trade). We thank Nadia Bloemendaal, Ted Buskop, Devi Purnamasari, Daniel Peregrina Gonzalez, Raed Hamed, Tamara Happe, Ben Poschhold, Aaron Alexander, Dirk Eilander, Tim Leijnse, Sanne Muis, and Frauke Feser for comments on previous versions of the manuscript.

This research has been supported by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, H2020 Societal Challenges (grant no. 820712).

This paper was edited by Robert Šakić Trogrlić and reviewed by two anonymous referees.

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• Introduction
• Data and methods
• Appendix A:  Additional information
• Code availability
• Data availability
• Author contributions
• Competing interests
• Special issue statement
• Acknowledgements
• Financial support
• Review statement

Case Study – Hurricane Sandy

New york and its history of storms.

New York City is no stranger to the effects of tropical storms and hurricanes. In fact, being located on something of a meteorological crossroads, lying in the zone where cold, Canadian Arctic air masses meet the warm Gulf Stream current, the Big Apple is in the firing line for both extreme winter storms and tropical cyclones.

One particularly notable storm that hit New York is the blizzard of 11 March 1888, which is considered one the USA’s worst ever blizzards. As for hurricanes and tropical cyclones, a number of tropical cyclones have clipped New York as they worked their way northwards, three making a direct hit (or landfall) over New York City: the 1821 Norfolk and Long Island Hurricane, the 1893 New York Hurricane and Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. The 1938 New England Hurricane came very close, making landfall on nearby Long Island.

Meanwhile, several hurricanes and tropical storms have just clipped New York City, including Hurricane Agnes, which passed just west of New York in June 1972 and killed 24. Hurricane Hazel brought record-breaking gusts of 113 mph to Battery Park, Manhattan Island, in October 1954. More recently Tropical Storm Floyd brought 60 mph winds and flash flooding to New York City in September 1999, whilst Hurricane Irene made landfall on Coney Island in August 2011, sparking the first-ever mandatory evacuation of coastal residents as a precaution.

2012’s Hurricane Sandy broke no wind or rainfall records in the Big Apple, but this massive hurricane proved one of the costliest ever to affect the USA. It brought winds up to 100 mph and widespread flooding from the associated storm surge. The surge flooded large parts of lower Manhattan, including subways and tunnels, caused mass power outages and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, not just in New York but also in neighbouring New Jersey.

Some background on hurricanes and tropical cyclones

Before we look at how Sandy developed into one of New York City’s most notorious visitors it’s worth taking a closer look at some general aspects of tropical cyclones and hurricanes.

A tropical cyclone is the generic name given to a weather system over tropical or sub-tropical waters containing an organised area of thunderstorms, with cyclonic winds (anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere) around a low pressure centre. The tropical cyclone spectrum ranges from relatively small, weak storms called tropical depressions, with surface wind speeds less than 38 mph, to powerful hurricanes with surface wind speeds in excess of 160 mph. They are among the most dangerous natural hazards on earth and every year they cause considerable loss of life and damage to property.

Tropical cyclones typically start life over tropical oceans, forming when tropical thunderstorms are able to cluster and merge together in areas where the sea surface temperature is 27 ºC or more, where wind speed does not vary greatly with height and where winds near the ocean surface blow from different directions.

The sea provides a constant source of heat and moisture to ‘fuel’ the tropical cyclone. Winds near the ocean surface blowing from different directions help the warm, moist air rise and form cloud, and as wind speeds do not vary greatly with height, the cloud is able to grow into the giant thunderstorms.

When reaching land (known as ‘making landfall’), tropical cyclones will quickly tend to weaken because their ‘fuel source’ has been cut off. They will also weaken if they move over areas of cooler sea. Or they can weaken if wind speeds near the upper parts of the tropical cyclone cloud increase – ‘blowing’ the tops of the cloud downstream, destroying some of the cyclone’s organised structure and weakening it. Sometimes, however, a tropical cyclone will move away from the tropics and sub-tropics into the mid-latitudes and merge with existing mid-latitude weather systems. When this happens large and very powerful storms can form from the merger of the two systems.

There are various categories of tropical cyclone based on their wind speed. Weak tropical cyclones are called tropical depressions. When winds reach 39 mph they become known as tropical storms and they are then also given a name, which helps weather forecasters talk about them. Tropical cyclones can last more than a week and there can be more than one over any ocean at once, so giving them different names helps prevent confusion in weather forecasts. When winds reach 74 mph tropical storms over the Atlantic and north-east Pacific become known as hurricanes, and it is usually not until a storm becomes a hurricane that an ‘eye’ (an area of calm in the centre of a storm) becomes visible. In North America the Saffir-Simpson scale is used to categorise hurricane intensity – there are five categories and a hurricane is known as a ‘major hurricane’ if it reaches category 3 or higher.

Table One: Categories of tropical cyclone.

Figure One: Tropical cyclone distribution ( https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/weather/tropical-cyclones/facts ).

Figure One shows where Atlantic hurricanes tend to occur. They usually take place between early June and late November, though a few have been known in both May and December. The peak in the Atlantic hurricane season is mid-August to around mid-October. Climatologically a powerful hurricane tracking close the USA’s eastern seaboard becomes more likely later in the summer and during the autumn; later in the year such storms will tend to be steered away north-eastwards into the Atlantic Ocean.

Typically tropical cyclones move forward at speeds of around 10 to 15 mph, though they can move both more slowly or much quicker, perhaps as fast as 40 mph under some circumstances. Movement can also be erratic, making forecasting their track even more challenging. A typical hurricane is around 300 to 400 miles in diameter, though as we shall see later they can be much bigger. The highest wind speeds will be wrapped around the core of the hurricane, extending out 25 to 50 miles from the core in smaller hurricanes, and 150 to 200 miles in larger ones.

The size of tropical cyclones is such that they will tend to steer around larger scale weather systems. In the case of Hurricane Sandy we shall see that this played an important role in determining her track.

The evolution of Sandy

Sandy started life as a cluster of thunderstorms which left western Africa on 11 October 2012 and moved westward to reach the Caribbean Sea on 18 October. This cluster of thunderstorms then gradually intensified to become a tropical storm on the 22nd. It moved towards Jamaica and on 24 October officially became a hurricane, called Sandy, just south of Jamaica. Sandy then moved across Jamaica, bringing with it winds up to 85 mph, before crossing eastern Cuba on the 25th. Sandy was at its most intense as it crossed eastern Cuba and moved towards the Bahamas, sustaining winds of around 115 mph. Sandy hit the Bahamas on the 26th and then weakened a little, briefly dropping back to a tropical storm before re-intensifying to a hurricane on the 27th. During the 26th and 27th Sandy was also able to grow much bigger in size whilst tracking almost parallel to the east coast of the USA.

An area of high pressure developing over Ontario on the 28th spread eastwards on the 29th and 30th, and acted as a block to Sandy’s path. Instead of curving north-eastwards into the Atlantic Ocean as many hurricanes do, Sandy was instead forced to turn north-westwards towards north-eastern USA. At the same time it interacted with a mid-latitude weather system which helped it to re-intensify and become much larger.

Sandy made landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey, during the early evening of 29 October as one the most intense and damaging storms ever to affect the east coast of the USA. Sustained surface winds at landfall were close to 80 mph with gusts between 85 and 95 mph. After making landfall Sandy moved north-westwards, bringing heavy snow and blizzards to parts of the central Appalachian Mountains, and by the morning of 31 October no discernible storm centre could be found as the remnants of Sandy pressed on towards the Great Lakes and eastern Canada.

As Sandy was so big, wind damage covered a much larger area than would usually be expected from a hurricane. A larger area of strong winds led to a larger than usual storm surge. Sandy’s arrival into the US coast on the 29th also coincided with both high tide and spring tide, meaning that the tide would be at around its highest level. In New York City this added an extra 20 to 50 cm to the high water mark.

The extensive damage Sandy caused was the result of a number of unfortunate coincidences. It was able to grow particularly big, it was steered by the weather pattern developing over Canada, its landfall coincided with one of the highest tides of the month, worsening the impact of the storm surge, and it was pushed into the New York area rather than the less densely populated area further north.

Sandy’s impacts

• Impacts extended to Canada, Wisconsin and Lake Michigan down the eastern side of the USA into the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
• At least 286 people were killed either directly or indirectly by Sandy. There were 147 direct deaths: 72 in the USA and the rest mainly in Caribbean, including 54 in Haiti and 11 in Cuba.
• In the USA of the 87 indirect deaths from Sandy, at least 50 were attributable to either falls by the elderly, carbon monoxide poisoning from inadequately ventilated generators and cooking equipment, or hypothermia as a cold snap followed Sandy and extended power outages left people without heating.
• Sandy was Cuba’s deadliest hurricane since 2005, whilst over the USA this was the greatest number of hurricane deaths from one storm outside of the southern states since Hurricane Agnes in 1972. Sandy was also the first hurricane to make landfall in Jamaica since 1988.
• Sandy will go down as one of the USA’s costliest hurricanes. Damage estimates, based on 2012 values, will top $60 billion. In New York City economic losses are estimated at exceeding $18 billion.
• Elsewhere damage estimates, again based on 2012 values, exceeded $30 million in the Dominican Republic, $100 million in Jamaica and $750 million in Haiti, as Haiti’s costliest hurricane on record. In Cuba damage estimates were around $2 billion, making it one of Cuba’s costliest ever hurricanes.
• 346,000 houses were damaged or destroyed in New Jersey and 305,000 damaged or destroyed in New York and there were power outages from Indiana to Maine, with more than 8.5 million homes and businesses losing power. More than 18,000 flights were cancelled.
• Sandy goes down as the largest hurricane on record in the Atlantic since at least 1988 in terms of diameter of gales. Among other meteorological ‘highlights’, Sandy brought 80 to 90 mph gusts over New York and New Jersey and its rain turned to heavy snow and blizzards over the Central Appalachians.
• Sandy also brought heavy rain into north-east USA, the highest totals occurring south and west of New York City where typical amounts were around 25 mm whereas, for example, Washington DC had more than 125 mm and Niagara Falls close to 75 mm.
• Record storm tides were also recorded in New Jersey, New York State and Pennsylvania coastal areas; in New York City, for example, the storm tide rose more than 4 m above mean low water, a record high storm tide for New York, beating the previous record set in 1960. Meanwhile, waves close to 10 m high were recorded in New York harbour, more than 2 m higher than the previous record, whilst waves just offshore New York were probably the largest in at least the last 40 or so years.

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Hurricane Sandy Case Study

However, poor land use management and the lack of former amalgamation practices, that cannot soon be undone, have placed many people and significant amounts of property and other structures in harm’s way increasing not only human vulnerability, but that of the environment as well. Another caveat to this unique storm was the fact that, given its immense size, it would affect multiple regions at once creating an important need for inter-agency coordination and communication.

The vast majority of failures in the management and response to emergency events, such as super storms Like Hurricane Sandy, has been attributed to lack of communication and coordination among personnel charged with emergency management across all levels of government – federal, state, local and tribal.

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The failure of these emergency management entities to establish mutual aid agreements and positive working partnerships in advance of emergency incidents only adds to the chaos and slows response and recovery efforts during and in the aftermath of crises events.

The research conducted regarding emergency management preparation and response to Hurricane Sandy Indicates that Inter-agency coordination and communication was a strong point In this case. However, the limitlessness were already present in these coastal regions due to poor land use practices and building code policies. Although these vulnerabilities had previously been identified little had been done to address these issues.

It is important to the field of inter-agency disaster management to study the successes affiliated with Hurricane Sandy so that emergency managers can model this response for future emergency or disaster events.

Studying what can be done to Improve preparation and mitigation measures, the causes and uniqueness of the storm itself, and the response and recovery protocols of Hurricane Sandy can be extremely valuable in establishing more effective practices for future events and can lead to better mitigation practices overall.

The Event Hurricane sandy wall long De remembered as one AT ten Atlantic ocean’s largest Ana most devastating storms to make land fall in the United States. Although this hybrid super-storm is believed to be responsible for killing 70 people in the Caribbean, 109 people in the United States and causing an estimated $50 billion in damages in the United States alone, its affects could have been far worse if not for the exceptional lead time and accurate forecasting of this hurricane.

The storm was first detected in the Caribbean on October 21, 2012 and was predicted to affect the Eastern Seaboard of the United States within a week. On October 22nd the tropical depression off the coast of Nicaragua gained strength and was upgraded to Tropical Storm Sandy. By October 24th the storm had begun to move north across the Caribbean and crossed Jamaica as a category one hurricane with sustained winds of 80 MPH.

Hurricane Sandy unloaded more than 20 inches of rain over the Dominican Republic and Haiti where it is estimated to have killed 50 Haitian due to flooding and mudslides.

Dryer, 2012) By October 26th, Hurricane Sandy had sustained winds of 110 MPH and is nearly a category three storm as it made landfall in the historic city of Santiago De Cuba and destroyed nearly everything in its path. By October 27th, Hurricane Sandy had moved away from the Bahamas and was on track for the coast of Florida, leaving in its wake an estimated death toll in the Caribbean of 70 people and approximately $300 million dollars in property damage to the Caribbean region. After crossing the Bahamas, Hurricane Sandy turned slightly northwest and began heading for the coast of Florida.

Forecasters continued working to narrow down the region where they believed Hurricane Sandy would likely make landfall and cause the most damage. Emergency managers in the United States were tracking the progress of the storm and gearing up for its expected arrival with massive preparation efforts that will be presented later in this paper.

By October 28th, Hurricane Sandy had begun paralleling the coast of the Carolina’s and continued moving northwest keeping its eye well offshore.

Forecasters began to detect an unusual weather configuration and predicted that it was inevitable that Hurricane Sandy would marry up with other theater patterns, namely a high-pressure cold front to the north. As predicted, Hurricane Sandy morphed with the high-pressure cold front and became a powerful super storm with winds covering over 1,000 miles. The super storm gained strength and intensity producing a record 13-foot storm surge that was also intensified by the fact that tides were already high due too full moon. The storm surge was expected to cause flooding conditions that were the worst case scenario for the region.

On October 29th Hurricane Sandy turned its focus toward the northwest and began its 300-mile trek to the shores of Atlantic City, New Jersey.

The 300-mile run to the coast gave plenty of time for Hurricane Sandy to combine with other weather systems off shore to gain energy and build up a significant storm surge that would guarantee a powerful and sustained punch to the New Jersey shores. Given the phenomenal size of the super storm, Hurricane Sandy was already delivering high winds and dumping heavy rains in Washington, D. C. Maryland and Delaware causing wind damage to structures, downing trees and power lines, and cutting off power to millions of people. By the time all was said and done, Hurricane Sandy had affected “more than 0 million people on the Eastern Seaboard.

” (Dryer, 2012) Rainfall totals across this region in the short amount of time that it took Hurricane sandy to Doll tongue totaled runner Trot 2-lenses Turner Inland Ana 10-inches in regions closer to the coast, holding true to what forecasters had predicted earlier in the week. Sameness, 2012) By 8:pm on October 29th Hurricane Sandy, now classified as a post-tropical northeaster, made its promised landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey during a full moon high tide. Due to the fact that the storm had taken an unusual track and approached the coast from the southeast meant that he strong cyclonic winds and highest portion of the storm surge was to the front of the weather system as it pushed ashore. These conditions meant that the winds and storm surge, combined with the storm’s forward motion, brought with it the worse case scenario for the harbors of New Jersey and New York.

The record high storm surge, enhanced by the full moon high tide, easily topped the seawall in Lower Manhattan, New York causing flooding to portions of the subway system and to the commuter tunnel that connected Lower Manhattan with Brooklyn, New York.

The 1,000 mile circumference of the storm continued to wreak havoc throughout New Jersey and New York overnight through three cycles of high and low tides. Thus, flooding and wind damage continued relentlessly throughout many coastal and even inland towns.

By daybreak on October 30th the super storm had begun moving away from New York, but the backside of the huge storm was still inflicting its last hurrah before weakening and moving further inland toward Pennsylvania. On October 31st Hurricane Sandy dissipated over the western region of Pennsylvania leaving in its devastating wake 109 people in the United States dead, property damage exceeding $50 billion, and an opportunity for lessons to be learned to improve mitigation measures and emergency management practices before the next disaster event strikes.

Preparation & Mitigation The early detection of the tropical depression off the coast of Nicaragua in the Caribbean on October 21st allowed for significant lead time for preparing the regions expected to be in the storm’s path well in advance of it making landfall. Teams of weather forecasters and emergency managers in the United States had been tracking the storm since its birth deep in the Caribbean in order to predict its damage potential and possible track to make landfall on the United States’ Eastern Seaboard.

In order to mitigate the potential damage and effects of the storm, city officials, mayors and state governors began formulating emergency response plans for their respective cities. For example, New York Governor Andrew Common “ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to start planning for an orderly suspension of service” in anticipation of the impending storm. New York City officials also ordered the evacuation of areas in what they identified as Zone A of the city, which is an area prone to flooding, and public schools were ordered closed. Unfunny. Com, 2012) Mayor Bloomberg and New York City officials comprised and released a plan to meet the challenges faced by New Work’s “growing population, aging infrastructure, a changing climate, and an evolving economy.

” The city plan’s goals were essentially to “build a greener, greater New York” With a projected completion by the year 2030. (pliancy, 2011) The city plan was updated in 2011 to include initiatives to improve the physical structures of New York and the functionality of its infrastructure for a more sustainable city.

A thorough review of this city plan resulted in some conflicting interpretations of what seemed to be the identification of vulnerabilities, such as the rolling sea levels, Walt ten clay’s plans AT want to ay tout coastal waterfronts identifying this coastal vulnerability, the plan acknowledges that the city’s 520 miles of coastline present an increased risk of flooding as sea levels continue to rise an anticipated ten inches over the next twenty years and as storms become more severe due to global warming and climate change.

Conversely; however, the plan presents actions aimed at creating more affordable homes and neighborhoods to handle the emend of an ever-increasing population. One such action is presented in a case study in which the city is developing a waterfront area named Hunter’s Point South located in Queens, New York that overlooks midtown Manhattan.

The 2011 updated pliancy proposed that, “By 2013, the first phase of Hunter’s Point South will have transformed more than 800,000 square feet of vacant waterfront land into an active neighborhood with vibrant retail corridors. ” (p. 5) The development of waterfront lands such as this only serves to place a greater number of people and structures in harm’s way. It is inevitable that rising sea levels and future super storms will adversely affect the residents of the Hunter’s Point South community both in property damage and lives lost. An action plan that would have been more succinct with mitigating the vulnerability of rising sea levels and flooding would have been a proposal to transform vacant coastal waterfronts, such as that mentioned above, into natural barriers like wildlife sanctuaries, estuaries, or public parks.

The pliancy’s sustainability definition is grandiose, but lacks plans that would help to build a more sustainable natural environment.

Instead, the definition of sustainability focuses on growing areas of the city accessible to transit, employment opportunities, a better selection of housing choices, water and energy conservation, and using materials and methods to improve public health. Albeit these ideas may be noble, they do not present solutions on improving environmental sustainability, which is key to increasing human sustainability.

Although some great ideas have been presented in both the updated 2011 pliancy and other commissioned reports regarding rising sea levels and increasingly powerful storms, New York appears to have been issued by the costs of doing something to protect against these inevitable elements. Matt Sledge, author of an article that appeared in the March 30, 2013 edition of the New York Huffing Post suggested that mitigating for the current structure of New York against the environmental hazards will cost billions.

This is a price tag that seems to make officials, who are more concerned about the state of the economy, shy away from spending money on “soft edge” protections such as sand dunes, marsh islands, oyster beds, artificial islands and a system of reefs that could all absorb significant amounts of water caused by storm surges. Preliminary studies indicate that solutions such as the “soft edges” mentioned above are the best, yet most costly solutions to mitigation.

However, these studies are incomplete as they are not funded sufficiently by officials.

Some work is being done to implement “soft edge” solutions, but much more support and money is needed to make the solutions fully effective. Sledge (2013) identified the following proposals to protect against the next big storm: Building large storm surge barriers such as that which the Dutch have built, but cautions that people would be enticed to into feeling protected by the rooters and would build behind it, thus increasing their vulnerability should the barrier fail. Limit development on the waterfronts.

The best way to protect against property damage Ana lives lost Is to not Dull tender In ten TLS place.

Seriously Invest in the “soft edges” barriers, which appear to be the best solution for the environment, people, and property. Building sea walls, which is significantly cheaper than other “soft edge” approaches, but provide no assurances that they would be effective, given the evidence revealed by Hurricane Sandy’s ability to easily top the sea wall into Lower Manhattan.

Investing in beach fill projects to elevate sand dunes to help protect against waves and wind, although more money needs to be spent in studies for its feasibility and effectiveness for providing permanent protection. Hardening New Work’s electrical grid by relocating crucial equipment above floodplains and installing submersible switches to withstand flooding conditions.

Sealing off subways by raising ventilation grates and installing inflatable devices to stop water from entering the underground subway system tunnels. In researching information available through a variety of media and online sources, it appeared as Hough those charged with emergency management responsibilities were taking Hurricane Sandy seriously from the point of its detection in the Caribbean and working to prepare their respective regions for the storm’s damaging winds, rains, and flooding potential.

Emergency managers from all levels of government were monitoring Hurricane Sandy’s progress, including President Obama who was briefed daily in meetings with key officials such as the Director of Homeland Security, the FEM. Administrator, the National Hurricane Center Director, and the Homeland Security Advisor. These officials were given direction by President Obama to reach UT to all the state governors in the path of Hurricane Sandy to ensure that they had all the necessary resources and support needed to prepare for and respond to the arrival of the super storm.

On Saturday, October 27th FEM. activated the National Response Coordination Center (NRC) at its headquarters in Washington, D.

C. The NRC is comprised of multiple agencies and is responsible for coordinating the federal response with assisting state agencies in their preparation for and response to emergency situations. The NRC essentially serves as a support organization to state agencies. On Sunday, October 28th President Obama made federal support available to save lives, protect public health, protect public safety, and to protect property by signing emergency declarations for the states of Maryland, Washington, D.

C. , Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.

“These declarations allow FEM. to provide resources directly to state, tribal, and local government engaged in live-saving and sustaining activities. ” (FEM., 2012) The day before Hurricane Sandy’s arrival, there were already over 1,000 FEM. personnel on the ground on the East Coast assisting in response operations, inter-agency immunization support, and logistical support. Federal support was available both in advance of the storm and in its aftermath.

Details of federal support made available in the story’s aftermath will be presented later in this paper. At the state level preparations were also well underway in advance of the storm, as I indicated earlier in this section. Officials could only prepare citizens and attempt to harden vulnerable areas with temporary measures, as there certainly wasn’t enough time to remedy all of the past practices that created these vulnerabilities to begin with. New

York Mayor Michael Bloomberg held press conferences to provide information and to encourage New Yorkers not to become complacent and to take the advise of officials seriously given ten dangerous potential AT Hurricane sandy. New York Salty McCall took the following measures in preparation for Hurricane Sandy’s arrival (Katz, 2012): Suspension of public transit service with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MAT) Relocating MAT buses and trains to safe locations to protect them from damage New York Broadway theater owners cancelled performances/shows on Sunday and Monday evenings when the storm was anticipated to be at its worse

Cancellation of events in city parks and the closure of city parks and beaches Cancellation of elective surgeries and the discharge of patients from hospitals and care facilities located in Zone A, which was an area most vulnerable to flooding Ensuring back-up generators were operable at critical care facilities in the event of power outages The New York Downtown Hospital located in Lower Manhattan was evacuated Sunday evening in anticipation of power outages and flooding in the area Major airline carriers cancelled flights in and out of the area in anticipation of the tort Cleaning storm drains and reinforcing structures and areas vulnerable to flooding and wind damage Opening, staffing and supplying 65 shelters in various locations throughout the city to provide shelter to families and pets affected by the storm New York Stock Exchange closed their doors on October 29th in anticipation of the storm’s arrival, but continued on-line trading Providing transportation services to evacuate those in need through requests on the 311 phone system and the city’s Office of Emergency Management website Suspension of ferry service on the East River

Police and highway patrol officers were placed on extended work hours and propositioned to assist stranded motorists and others in need Special rescue units with the fire department were activated and placed in the most vulnerable areas The New York Air and Army National Guard were instructed by New York Governor Andrew Common to be prepared to mobile in response to the storm Assessment of construction sites were conducted and cranes and other heavy equipment was tied down and secured Residents were encouraged to prepare “go bags,” secure outside property, stock supplies for water and other survival essentials, use stairs instead of elevator, and cover windows with drapes or other materials in the event of glass breakage or projected objects from other buildings New York wasn’t the only city; however, bracing for Hurricane Sandy impact.

The Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, ordered that residents evacuate the barrier islands in the region and closed all state offices on the day the storm was predicted to make landfall. Governor Deanne Mallory of Connecticut ordered residents to evacuate in parts of the region that were expected to receive the heaviest impact from Hurricane Sandy. The preparation measures mentioned above were the best actions that could have been oaken at the time given the fact that known vulnerabilities were not addressed or corrected through improved mitigation before the impending super storm.

Response & Recovery As mentioned earlier when discussing preparation of Hurricane Sandy, emergency managers and other officials, up to the level of the United States President, were taking the threat of this super storm seriously. Preparation measures instituted by the federal, state,and local governments made the transition to response and recovery activities more seamless and rapid.

By Sunday, October 30th President Adam Ana already cleared New York, New Jersey Ana Connecticut as major starters, thus making federal funds available for victims to apply for aid. In addition, President Obama directed FEM. to establish a power restoration task force to return power and fuel resources as quickly as possible in the areas affected heaviest by the storm.

By October 31, 2012, there were 2,276 FEM. personnel deployed and on the ground working on the East Coast.

New York Amsterdam News staff writer, Stephen Johnson, wrote an article in the November 29 – December 5, 2012, edition regarding FEM. criticism. Despite Fame’s rapid response the organization still received criticism from victims and dealt with claims that private ND volunteer organizations were outperforming them in response and recovery efforts. FEM. representative Victor Engine addressed these complaints by explaining that the role of FEM.

“is to assess damage and direct victims to the best possible government service to address their needs. ” (p. ) Fame’s performance in the response and recovery efforts following Hurricane Sandy have been redeeming given the black eye that the federal government sustained as a result of their poor performance with the 2005 super storm, Hurricane Strain, that devastated New Orleans. The government’s response to Hurricane Sandy demonstrate its ability to earn from past mistakes. Regions affected by Hurricane Sandy had already established inter-agency partnerships in advance of the storm by establishing command and control of the incident utilizing the protocols in accordance with the National Response Framework (NOR) and the National Incident Management System (AIMS).

New York City Mayor Bloomberg commended FEM. and Homeland Security through the federal government for being there when they were needed and for delivering supplies and resources immediately. The overall response and recovery efforts for the regions affected by Hurricane Sandy were quite seamless. Officials irked together and communicated effectively to respond to the needs of those affected in their respective Jurisdictions. Coordination among federal, state, municipal, and nonprofit organizations was achieved effectively brining all necessary resources to areas in need.

Preparedness measures I acted well in advance of the storm undoubtedly saved life’s.

For example, the mandatory evacuation of Zone A in New York was an effective call that removed people from harm’s way. Given the inevitable sea level rise over the next two decades, there are some lessons that can be learned even from a successful evacuation call such as this. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, it was discovered that the storm surge actually extended beyond Zone A into some surrounding neighborhoods that were not evacuated. As Mayor Bloomberg stated in response to this during a press conference at the New York Marriott Downtown on December 2, 2012, “So now, we’ve got to reexamine the evacuation zones and update them to reflect the new reality that we face.

(Bloomberg, 2012) Rapid Repair Teams of more that 1 ,600 skilled workers to fix wiring, plumbing systems, and other home systems were deployed to assist with getting those displaced from their homes back up and running as quickly as possible. There were over 10,000 people who took advantage of this recovery service in which FEM. foot the repair bills. Recovery efforts continue today in the areas affected most severely by Hurricane Sandy. Officials must now shoulder the responsibility of enacting new practices, policies and protocols based on the lessons learned from this super storm, as tender wall De Torture events Tanat are Kelly to continue producing more severe conditions.

Conclusions and Recommendations Conclusions After reviewing the resources and information regarding Hurricane Sandy, it is clear that officials and emergency management applied lessons learned from Hurricane Strain regarding the preparation, response and recovery operations at the federal, state and local levels. The DISH and FEM. certainly demonstrated that they revamped their protocols since the black eye the federal government suffered following Hurricane Strain. Preparation measures at all levels of government ensued immediately upon detecting the tropical depression deep in the Caribbean that would soon become supper storm Hurricane Sandy. I believe that the preparation measures taken by officials and emergency managers went as well as they could have given that they had to work with the vulnerabilities already present.

Mitigation efforts leave much to be desired and recommendations will be made later in this paper to address those concerns. Preparation, response and recovery efforts were efficient and effective due to the fact that officials took this storm seriously from its inception. Regions expected to be impacted by the super storm were evacuated and property was boarded up and secured with temporary reinforcements well in advance of the storm. These preparation measure undoubtedly saved lives and helped to reduce some property damage costs, although those costs were very high in the end. Communication and coordination was established early among all levels of government, including other officials and volunteer, non-profit and private sector organizations.

This can be attributed with a rather seamless transition from the preparation phase through response and recovery efforts overall.

Recommendations The updated 2011 pliancy city plan for New York introduced hundreds of initiatives to help create what was termed a greener, greater New York. This plan included some great proposals and many of the initiatives were already enacted, but far from being complete. A significant sticking point with this plan for e was the manner in which the term sustainability was defined. The definition appeared grandiose and sounded more like a political platform to encourage more people to want to live, work, play and spend money in New York.

The definition of sustainability never addressed protecting the natural environment. Instead, it proposed providing more housing choices to accommodate various income levels and cultivating multi-use neighborhoods with access to public transit.

Perhaps one of the most glaring problems with this plan was the case study presented for the Hunter’s South Point neighborhood. As mentioned earlier in this paper, the development of his once vacant coastal waterfront area has only served to place more people and property in harm’s way. As of 2013, it is proposed that there will be more than 800,000 square feet of vulnerable waterfront transformed into an active neighborhood of housing, shops and restaurants.

Although the pliancy addresses the fact that sea levels are expected to rise ten inches over the next two decades creating greater vulnerability along shorelines and more significant storm surges, this information seems to be largely ignored given the city’s plans to continue with housing development along these critical coastlines. It is recommended that instead f placing more people and property in harm’s way, that perhaps we instead invest in amalgamation practices Tanat nearer ten target along our coasts In ten long run, tense residing in city’s with vulnerabilities such as New York, would be better served by their cities investing in projects that provide natural barriers to what is inevitably a future of greater super storms and other catastrophic events influenced by climate change and caused by the ecological footprint humans continue to leave on the environment in which we live.

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Hurricane Sandy: Supply, Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage

By: Morten Olsen, Emily McBride

The Hurricane Sandy case focuses on understanding how markets work, supply and demand, market equilibrium and the role of prices as a coordination mechanism. To this end, we use the aftermath of the…

• Length: 4 page(s)
• Publication Date: Mar 11, 2016
• Discipline: Economics
• Product #: IES586-PDF-ENG

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The Hurricane Sandy case focuses on understanding how markets work, supply and demand, market equilibrium and the role of prices as a coordination mechanism. To this end, we use the aftermath of the hurricane that hit New York and New Jersey in 2012, and in particular the gas shortages that caused long lines and frayed tempers. Hurricane Sandy interrupted gas supplies, resulting in many stations around the city shutting down when their supply ran out. New Yorkers became increasingly desperate to get hold of gas for a variety of reasons: to commute to work, to visit relatives in other areas of town or to power generators for those who had lost power. New York and New Jersey both have laws prohibiting price gouging, but as the shortage stretched on gas was being sold on Craigslist at many times its prehurricane price. Essentially, the government response to the gas shortage created a black market. Once the situation was resolved and prices had returned to normal, the two states began issuing fines to gas stations and hotels that had overcharged customers during the crisis, and Craigslist was subpoenaed for further information. Yet, from an economic point of view, the shortage was a clear-cut case of supply problems. With that in mind, perhaps the government, rather than everyday citizens, should have acted differently.

Mar 11, 2016

Discipline:

Geographies:

United States

Industries:

Gas utilities, Public administration

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Impact and Management of Hurricane Sandy

October 2012

The Caribbean (hitting Jamaica, Cuba and Bermuda) and the USA (affecting 24 states)

• Damage in the US estimated at over $63 billion
• Vulnerable Coastline due to:
• Coast from Delaware to Rhode Island is densely populated
• Large areas of expensive coastal property very close to sea level
• Many recreational and tourist resorts with beach front infrastructure such as hotels and amusement parks
• Numerous barrier islands which are unstable, prone to storm surges and wave erosion, and hard to evacuate during rescue phase
• Widespread disruption of transport and utilities in Jamaica.
• Haiti badly affected by flooding and landslides.
• 20,000 airline flights cancelled over the period October 27th-November 1st, 8.6 million power outages. Nearly 600,000 businesses and homes were destroyed.
• At least 286 people were killed either directly or indirectly by Sandy. There were 147 direct deaths: 72 in the USA and the rest mainly in Caribbean, including 54 in Haiti and 11 in Cuba.
• In the USA of the 87 indirect deaths from Sandy, at least 50 were attributable to either falls by the elderly, carbon monoxide poisoning from inadequately ventilated generators and cooking equipment, or hypothermia as a cold snap followed Sandy and extended power outages left people without heating.

Management and Response

Preparations

Caribbean and Bermuda

• October 22nd issued a tropical storm watch
• October 23rd upgraded to a Tropical storm warning
• Many residents stocked up on supplies and reinforced roofing material
• People were urged to take care of their neighbours, especially the elderly, children and disabled
• Schools, government buildings and the airport in Kingston shut down
• Early curfews were put in place to protect residents, properties and to prevent crime

United States

• East Coast attempted to head off long-term power failures by being prepared to repair storm damage and employees working longer hours
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) monitored Sandy
• Flight cancellations put in place
• National Guard and U.S Air Force put as many as 45,000 personnel in at least seven states on alert for possible duty in response to the preparations and aftermath of Sandy
• Florida - Closure and cancellations of activities in schools
• Carolinas - Tropical storm watch was issued. National park service closed at least 5 sections
• Washington, D.C - October 26th declared state of emergency. Metro service, both rail and bus was cancelled on October 29ths due to expected high winds
• Maryland - State of emergency announced October 26th, Residents were evacuated with the assistance of the Maryland Natural Resources Police, 2 shelters were opened. Maryland Transit Administration cancelled all services for October 29th and 30th.

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Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage Case Analysis and Case Solution

Posted by Peter Williams on Aug-09-2018

Introduction of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage Case Solution

The Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage case study is a Harvard Business Review case study, which presents a simulated practical experience to the reader allowing them to learn about real life problems in the business world. The Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage case consisted of a central issue to the organization, which had to be identified, analysed and creative solutions had to be drawn to tackle the issue. This paper presents the solved Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage case analysis and case solution. The method through which the analysis is done is mentioned, followed by the relevant tools used in finding the solution.

The case solution first identifies the central issue to the Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage case study, and the relevant stakeholders affected by this issue. This is known as the problem identification stage. After this, the relevant tools and models are used, which help in the case study analysis and case study solution. The tools used in identifying the solution consist of the SWOT Analysis, Porter Five Forces Analysis, PESTEL Analysis, VRIO analysis, Value Chain Analysis, BCG Matrix analysis, Ansoff Matrix analysis, and the Marketing Mix analysis. The solution consists of recommended strategies to overcome this central issue. It is a good idea to also propose alternative case study solutions, because if the main solution is not found feasible, then the alternative solutions could be implemented. Lastly, a good case study solution also includes an implementation plan for the recommendation strategies. This shows how through a step-by-step procedure as to how the central issue can be resolved.

Problem Identification of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage Case Solution

Harvard Business Review cases involve a central problem that is being faced by the organization and these problems affect a number of stakeholders. In the problem identification stage, the problem faced by Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage is identified through reading of the case. This could be mentioned at the start of the reading, the middle or the end. At times in a case analysis, the problem may be clearly evident in the reading of the HBR case. At other times, finding the issue is the job of the person analysing the case. It is also important to understand what stakeholders are affected by the problem and how. The goals of the stakeholders and are the organization are also identified to ensure that the case study analysis are consistent with these.

Analysis of the Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage HBR Case Study

The objective of the case should be focused on. This is doing the Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage Case Solution. This analysis can be proceeded in a step-by-step procedure to ensure that effective solutions are found.

• In the first step, a growth path of the company can be formulated that lays down its vision, mission and strategic aims. These can usually be developed using the company history is provided in the case. Company history is helpful in a Business Case study as it helps one understand what the scope of the solutions will be for the case study.
• The next step is of understanding the company; its people, their priorities and the overall culture. This can be done by using company history. It can also be done by looking at anecdotal instances of managers or employees that are usually included in an HBR case study description to give the reader a real feel of the situation.
• Lastly, a timeline of the issues and events in the case needs to be made. Arranging events in a timeline allows one to predict the next few events that are likely to take place. It also helps one in developing the case study solutions. The timeline also helps in understanding the continuous challenges that are being faced by the organisation.

SWOT analysis of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage

An important tool that helps in addressing the central issue of the case and coming up with Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage HBR case solution is the SWOT analysis.

• The SWOT analysis is a strategic management tool that lists down in the form of a matrix, an organisation's internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats. It helps in the strategic analysis of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage.
• Once this listing has been done, a clearer picture can be developed in regards to how strategies will be formed to address the main problem. For example, strengths will be used as an advantage in solving the issue.

Therefore, the SWOT analysis is a helpful tool in coming up with the Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage Case Study answers. One does not need to remain restricted to using the traditional SWOT analysis, but the advanced TOWS matrix or weighted average SWOT analysis can also be used.

Porter Five Forces Analysis for Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage

Another helpful tool in finding the case solutions is of Porter's Five Forces analysis. This is also a strategic tool that is used to analyse the competitive environment of the industry in which Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage operates in. Analysis of the industry is important as businesses do not work in isolation in real life, but are affected by the business environment of the industry that they operate in. Harvard Business case studies represent real-life situations, and therefore, an analysis of the industry's competitive environment needs to be carried out to come up with more holistic case study solutions. In Porter's Five Forces analysis, the industry is analysed along 5 dimensions.

• These are the threats that the industry faces due to new entrants.
• It includes the threat of substitute products.
• It includes the bargaining power of buyers in the industry.
• It includes the bargaining power of suppliers in an industry.
• Lastly, the overall rivalry or competition within the industry is analysed.

This tool helps one understand the relative powers of the major players in the industry and its overall competitive dynamics. Actionable and practical solutions can then be developed by keeping these factors into perspective.

PESTEL Analysis of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage

Another helpful tool that should be used in finding the case study solutions is the PESTEL analysis. This also looks at the external business environment of the organisation helps in finding case study Analysis to real-life business issues as in HBR cases.

• The PESTEL analysis particularly looks at the macro environmental factors that affect the industry. These are the political, environmental, social, technological, environmental and legal (regulatory) factors affecting the industry.
• Factors within each of these 6 should be listed down, and analysis should be made as to how these affect the organisation under question.
• These factors are also responsible for the future growth and challenges within the industry. Hence, they should be taken into consideration when coming up with the Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage case solution.

VRIO Analysis of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage

This is an analysis carried out to know about the internal strengths and capabilities of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage. Under the VRIO analysis, the following steps are carried out:

• The internal resources of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage are listed down.
• Each of these resources are assessed in terms of the value it brings to the organization.
• Each resource is assessed in terms of how rare it is. A rare resource is one that is not commonly used by competitors.
• Each resource is assessed whether it could be imitated by competition easily or not.
• Lastly, each resource is assessed in terms of whether the organization can use it to an advantage or not.

The analysis done on the 4 dimensions; Value, Rareness, Imitability, and Organization. If a resource is high on all of these 4, then it brings long-term competitive advantage. If a resource is high on Value, Rareness, and Imitability, then it brings an unused competitive advantage. If a resource is high on Value and Rareness, then it only brings temporary competitive advantage. If a resource is only valuable, then it’s a competitive parity. If it’s none, then it can be regarded as a competitive disadvantage.

Value Chain Analysis of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage

The Value chain analysis of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage helps in identifying the activities of an organization, and how these add value in terms of cost reduction and differentiation. This tool is used in the case study analysis as follows:

• The firm’s primary and support activities are listed down.
• Identifying the importance of these activities in the cost of the product and the differentiation they produce.
• Lastly, differentiation or cost reduction strategies are to be used for each of these activities to increase the overall value provided by these activities.

Recognizing value creating activities and enhancing the value that they create allow Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage to increase its competitive advantage.

BCG Matrix of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage

The BCG Matrix is an important tool in deciding whether an organization should invest or divest in its strategic business units. The matrix involves placing the strategic business units of a business in one of four categories; question marks, stars, dogs and cash cows. The placement in these categories depends on the relative market share of the organization and the market growth of these strategic business units. The steps to be followed in this analysis is as follows:

• Identify the relative market share of each strategic business unit.
• Identify the market growth of each strategic business unit.
• Place these strategic business units in one of four categories. Question Marks are those strategic business units with high market share and low market growth rate. Stars are those strategic business units with high market share and high market growth rate. Cash Cows are those strategic business units with high market share and low market growth rate. Dogs are those strategic business units with low market share and low growth rate.
• Relevant strategies should be implemented for each strategic business unit depending on its position in the matrix.

The strategies identified from the Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage BCG matrix and included in the case pdf. These are either to further develop the product, penetrate the market, develop the market, diversification, investing or divesting.

Ansoff Matrix of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage

Ansoff Matrix is an important strategic tool to come up with future strategies for Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage in the case solution. It helps decide whether an organization should pursue future expansion in new markets and products or should it focus on existing markets and products.

• The organization can penetrate into existing markets with its existing products. This is known as market penetration strategy.
• The organization can develop new products for the existing market. This is known as product development strategy.
• The organization can enter new markets with its existing products. This is known as market development strategy.
• The organization can enter into new markets with new products. This is known as a diversification strategy.

The choice of strategy depends on the analysis of the previous tools used and the level of risk the organization is willing to take.

Marketing Mix of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage

Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage needs to bring out certain responses from the market that it targets. To do so, it will need to use the marketing mix, which serves as a tool in helping bring out responses from the market. The 4 elements of the marketing mix are Product, Price, Place and Promotions. The following steps are required to carry out a marketing mix analysis and include this in the case study analysis.

• Analyse the company’s products and devise strategies to improve the product offering of the company.
• Analyse the company’s price points and devise strategies that could be based on competition, value or cost.
• Analyse the company’s promotion mix. This includes the advertisement, public relations, personal selling, sales promotion, and direct marketing. Strategies will be devised which makes use of a few or all of these elements.
• Analyse the company’s distribution and reach. Strategies can be devised to improve the availability of the company’s products.

Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage Blue Ocean Strategy

The strategies devised and included in the Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage case memo should have a blue ocean strategy. A blue ocean strategy is a strategy that involves firms seeking uncontested market spaces, which makes the competition of the company irrelevant. It involves coming up with new and unique products or ideas through innovation. This gives the organization a competitive advantage over other firms, unlike a red ocean strategy.

Competitors analysis of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage

The PESTEL analysis discussed previously looked at the macro environmental factors affecting business, but not the microenvironmental factors. One of the microenvironmental factors are competitors, which are addressed by a competitor analysis. The Competitors analysis of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage looks at the direct and indirect competitors within the industry that it operates in.

• This involves a detailed analysis of their actions and how these would affect the future strategies of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage.
• It involves looking at the current market share of the company and its competitors.
• It should compare the marketing mix elements of competitors, their supply chain, human resources, financial strength etc.
• It also should look at the potential opportunities and threats that these competitors pose on the company.

Organisation of the Analysis into Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage Case Study Solution

Once various tools have been used to analyse the case, the findings of this analysis need to be incorporated into practical and actionable solutions. These solutions will also be the Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage case answers. These are usually in the form of strategies that the organisation can adopt. The following step-by-step procedure can be used to organise the Harvard Business case solution and recommendations:

• The first step of the solution is to come up with a corporate level strategy for the organisation. This part consists of solutions that address issues faced by the organisation on a strategic level. This could include suggestions, changes or recommendations to the company's vision, mission and its strategic objectives. It can include recommendations on how the organisation can work towards achieving these strategic objectives. Furthermore, it needs to be explained how the stated recommendations will help in solving the main issue mentioned in the case and where the company will stand in the future as a result of these.
• The second step of the solution is to come up with a business level strategy. The HBR case studies may present issues faced by a part of the organisation. For example, the issues may be stated for marketing and the role of a marketing manager needs to be assumed. So, recommendations and suggestions need to address the strategy of the marketing department in this case. Therefore, the strategic objectives of this business unit (Marketing) will be laid down in the solutions and recommendations will be made as to how to achieve these objectives. Similar would be the case for any other business unit or department such as human resources, finance, IT etc. The important thing to note here is that the business level strategy needs to be aligned with the overall corporate strategy of the organisation. For example, if one suggests the organisation to focus on differentiation for competitive advantage as a corporate level strategy, then it can't be recommended for the Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage Case Study Solution that the business unit should focus on costs.
• The third step is not compulsory but depends from case to case. In some HBR case studies, one may be required to analyse an issue at a department. This issue may be analysed for a manager or employee as well. In these cases, recommendations need to be made for these people. The solution may state that objectives that these people need to achieve and how these objectives would be achieved.

The case study analysis and solution, and Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage case answers should be written down in the Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage case memo, clearly identifying which part shows what. The Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage case should be in a professional format, presenting points clearly that are well understood by the reader.

Alternate solution to the Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage HBR case study

It is important to have more than one solution to the case study. This is the alternate solution that would be implemented if the original proposed solution is found infeasible or impossible due to a change in circumstances. The alternate solution for Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage is presented in the same way as the original solution, where it consists of a corporate level strategy, business level strategy and other recommendations.

Implementation of Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage Case Solution

The case study does not end at just providing recommendations to the issues at hand. One is also required to provide how these recommendations would be implemented. This is shown through a proper implementation framework. A detailed implementation framework helps in distinguishing between an average and an above average case study answer. A good implementation framework shows the proposed plan and how the organisations' resources would be used to achieve the objectives. It also lays down the changes needed to be made as well as the assumptions in the process.

• A proper implementation framework shows that one has clearly understood the case study and the main issue within it.
• It shows that one has been clarified with the HBR fundamentals on the topic.
• It shows that the details provided in the case have been properly analysed.
• It shows that one has developed an ability to prioritise recommendations and how these could be successfully implemented.
• The implementation framework also helps by removing out any recommendations that are not practical or actionable as these could not be implemented. Therefore, the implementation framework ensures that the solution to the Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage Harvard case is complete and properly answered.

Recommendations and Action Plan for Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage case analysis

For Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage, based on the SWOT Analysis, Porter Five Forces Analysis, PESTEL Analysis, VRIO analysis, Value Chain Analysis, BCG Matrix analysis, Ansoff Matrix analysis, and the Marketing Mix analysis, the recommendations and action plan are as follows:

• Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage should focus on making use of its strengths identified from the VRIO analysis to make the most of the opportunities identified from the PESTEL.
• Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage should enhance the value creating activities within its value chain.
• Hurricane Sandy Supply Demand and Appropriate Responses to the Gas Shortage should invest in its stars and cash cows, while getting rid of the dogs identified from the BCG Matrix analysis.
• To achieve its overall corporate and business level objectives, it should make use of the marketing mix tools to obtain desired results from its target market.

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HURRICANE SANDY (A-level geography case study) - Coggle Diagram

• 650,000 houses damaged/destroyed in NY+NJ
• 8.5 million businesses and homes without power
• 147 deaths (72 in US)
• NYC marathon cancelled
• $71 billion damage
• Flooded infrastructure further disrupted business
• 10m of beach lost in New Jersey making further erosion more likely
• International trade disruptions due to 18,000 cancelled flights
• Loss of income from cancelled events + reduced tourism
• Psychological damage to those whose friends/family died
• Responses + prep differed between countries (compared to Typhoon Haiyan)
• October 2012
• Most of the deaths were in the Caribbean (esp. Haiti)
• Winds 185km/h
• US is one of the richest countries in the world
• Rebuilding aimed to be more hurricane-proof
• International aid not needed so response faster
• 45,000 army personnel deployed in 7 states
• Many services etc. shut in advance
• 100,000s evacuated beforehand