After 10 years of planning, New York City broke ground in September on a $218 million plan to prevent flooding in Brooklyn’s Red Hook Harbor neighborhood, but experts say it provides insufficient protection from storms. The project would also provide less protection than other city flood protection projects, including a new $3.5 billion luxury development on the edge of the neighborhood.
More than a decade ago, Red Hook was home to Superstorm Sandy, which killed 44 people and caused $19 billion in damage across New York City, flooding homes and destroying businesses. In response, the city poured billions of dollars into nearby flood protection projects. Most of the money went to protecting Manhattan from a powerful 100-year storm, defined as a storm that has a 1 in 4 chance of occurring during a typical 30-year mortgage term.
But in Red Hook, where roughly two-thirds of residents are black and Hispanic and earn below the city’s median income, the city is instead building to protect itself from the decade-long storm. Planned construction is expected to raise roads and sidewalks, and build fencing and seawalls up to 10 feet above sea level.
“At best, it’s temporary; at worst, it provides a false sense of security,” said John Shapiro, a professor at the Pratt Institute. His research focuses on the impact of climate change on urban planning.
Shapiro and other experts say floods and storms are becoming more frequent and more intense as the climate warms. This forces coastal communities to make complex choices. Either retreat from the coast or build defenses in preparation for the next severe storm.
Port warehouse, brick building with black shutters. Currently housing an artist’s studio, with the Manhattan skyline in the background Shuran Huang, ProPublica
Red Hook is vulnerable to flooding because it is located on a peninsula that juts into New York Harbor. The area was a swamp until the 1870s, when the city began reclaiming it. In 1939, the city added the first section of Red Hook House for longshoremen. Red Hook House’s 32 buildings make up one of the city’s largest public housing developments and dominate the neighborhood’s skyline.
The neighborhood is home to Brooklyn’s last port, as well as an Amazon warehouse and an IKEA store. The artist’s studio is now tucked away among the old port buildings and trendy shops lining the cobbled streets. In recent years, this area has become more upscale.
Quincy Phillips was living in a third-floor apartment at Red Hook House when Sandy struck. He watched as water rushed into the first floor of the building.
Quincy Phillips and her family had to live without power for two weeks after Hurricane Sandy. Alex Bandoni/ProPublica
“It didn’t go beyond the second floor, which was really good,” he said. “I had to roll up my pants to even walk past to go outside.
The storm sent six-foot waves of water through neighborhoods, destroying homes, tearing off metal warehouse doors, knocking boats onto roads and driving cars out into the harbor.
Phillips’ family, like thousands of others in Red Hook, lived without power for two weeks and had to rely on federal aid until their refrigerators were restored.
The year after Sandy wiped out the homes of Mr. Phillips and his neighbors in Red Hook, then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s administration determined that Red Hook was at high risk for future flooding. A 2013 city report recommends a neighborhood flood protection system that combines infrastructure such as sea walls and flood gates.
The city said the project, now known as the Red Hook Coastal Resilience Project, would cost $200 million, but at the time it had only been able to secure a $50 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The subsequent administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio added an additional $50 million to the city’s capital budget. As a result, the city directed consultants to consider only projects that could be afforded with a smaller budget, according to the feasibility study. This makes for a whirlwind 10-year plan that isn’t very ambitious.
Construction on the Red Hook Coastal Resilience Project began in September. Shuran Huang of ProPublica
sea level rise is not taken into account
Scientists and engineers use historical tidal data to predict how often storms will occur in the future and how high flood waters may reach.
Models predict that in Red Hook, a 100-year storm at current sea levels would produce waves at least 11 feet high. This is one foot higher than current plans can defend.
This does not take sea level rise into account. Climate experts who serve on the city’s climate change committee predict that, in a worst-case scenario, sea levels could rise several feet by mid-century. After calculating the additional water levels, the city’s own study found that Red Hook would need to install a 15- to 18-foot-high barrier. In other parts of the city, neighborhood windbreak projects are being built to a height of at least 16 feet.
Elevation of urban flood control project
East Side Coastal Resiliency: 16.5 feet above sea level
Brooklyn Bridge – Montgomery Coastal Resilience: 16.5 feet (1.5 feet with deployable barrier)
South Battery Park City Resiliency: Up to 6.8 feet.
North/West Battery Park Resiliency: Up to 20 feet.
Red Hook Coastal Resilience: 10 feet
Philip Orton, an engineering professor at Stevens Institute of Technology who studies flood protection, said the federal flood insurance program, which provides subsidized flood insurance to homeowners living in high-flood-risk areas, encourages communities to adopt 100-year flood plans. That would lower the cost of flood insurance for residents, he said. “It’s rare that a community doesn’t do that,” he says. All of New York City’s other coastal storm protection projects meet the 100-year standard.
Guidelines from the Biden and Obama administrations encouraged federally funded projects to build at least 2 feet above 100-year storm forecasts. The Trump administration revoked them each term.
Last year, the city and FEMA increased funding for the Red Hook project by about $100 million. The city’s Office of Design and Construction, which is in charge of the project, said the additional funds covered 10 years of inflation and paid for upgrades to parks and green spaces in the area.
The new sea wall at Manhattan’s Asser Levy Playground is part of the East Side Coastal Resilience Project. The wall visible in the background is 6.5 feet taller than the wall planned for the Red Hook project. Shuran Huang of ProPublica
The funding also increased the project’s elevation from the original 8 feet to 10 feet to account for significant changes in sea level. However, it did not reach the level pursued in other areas of the city.
The Department of Design and Construction said the massive project would disrupt ports, cruises and other waterfront businesses and take away park space. When asked why Red Hook has a lower level of protection than other communities, a department spokesperson said its low-lying terrain and private waterfront make it difficult to access the construction and maintenance of protection systems. The spokesperson added that Sandy, the only storm to hit the city since 1927, has the potential to overtake the flood walls, so the current project is sufficient.
Michael Oppenheimer, a professor at Princeton University who served on the city’s climate change committee that developed the sea-level rise projections, said the city is misusing the historical record to justify its failure to protect itself from future storms.
“That’s a pretty poor excuse,” he said, adding that as sea levels rise, storms and flooding like the one experienced in Sandy will become more frequent.
A man tries to ride his bicycle through Hurricane Sandy floodwaters in Red Hook on October 29, 2012. Homes and businesses were destroyed in the deluge. Craig Warga/NY Daily News via Getty Images
Bernice Rosenzweig, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College who studies urban flooding and serves on the New York City Commission on Climate Change, said the project won’t be enough to protect Red Hook from even today’s big storms.
“Walls were not designed for deluges. Even the modern deluge forgets the deluges that will occur at the end of the 21st century,” she says.
unequal protection
City Councilwoman Alexa Aviles, who represents Red Hook, said infrastructure planning is particularly frustrating in Red Hook. She, along with community activists and residents, argue that the system used by the city and federal government to decide how much money to spend on flood protection is biased against poor communities.
“We never feel like we’re being prioritized. We’re constantly fighting with the city for basic service levels and to get these major projects completed and properly coordinated,” she said.
To win federal grants, applicants must conduct a cost-benefit analysis and prove that a flood project will save more money during a storm than the cost of construction, said Kristin Smith, an economic researcher at Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit organization that studies flood risk.
That can be difficult for poor communities, she says.
“Benefit-cost analysis can be an obstacle to qualifying for federal funding if the cost of the project is very high in a low-income area and the benefits are not large enough to justify it,” she says.
Red Hook residents, advocates and leaders say a proposed flood protection system for a nearby $3.5 billion housing development shows how well-protected the city’s wealthy residents are.
The development, called Brooklyn Marine Terminal, would build 6,000 near-market rate units on Red Hook’s northwest side, according to planning documents. The city’s task force approved the development in September, along with plans for port renovations and improvements. This promises a flood protection system that will protect against 100-year storms.
New housing development will have higher flood protection than the rest of Red Hook
Note: The proposed housing and 21-foot shelter are part of the Brooklyn Marine Terminal development plan. This 10-foot protection is part of the Red Hook Coastal Resilience Project, which includes flood walls and other forms of protection such as overpasses, sidewalks, and flood gates. Source: New York City Economic Development Corporation, New York City Department of Design and Construction Lucas Waldron/ProPublica
The Economic Development Corporation, a city-run nonprofit, owns the land and plans to pay for flood protection and other infrastructure with federal grants, the city’s capital budget, state funding, and a portion from the developer.
Brooklyn’s marine terminal plan would have to pass an environmental review and state approval process, but would bypass the city’s broader process. According to planning documents, the project could take until 2038 to complete.
The plan would protect the new development with a 21-foot-tall coastal seawall that would extend north of Red Hook’s north end for about a mile.
City planners who conducted an analysis of Brooklyn’s Marine Terminal for the City Club of New York Waterfront Committee, an advocacy group that promotes waterfront flood protection, say it would be a mistake to protect new development while Red Hook’s south coast has a lower level of protection. Newly developed areas would then be at risk because storm surge could overcome these barriers and flood the area from the landward side of the developed area.
The group said the plan would serve gentrification and developer interests rather than the greater Red Hook community.
“Most Red Hook residents live in public housing and lack the income needed to make a housing move in New York City,” the analysis states. In contrast, most residents in new developments are expected to be very affluent based on projected rents, he said.
A spokesperson for the Economic Development Corporation said the city will consider how to combine the two projects, but there are no plans to further protect the peninsula.
