Remaking New York City in the Wake of Climate Change

(TNS) - On the evening of October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy reached the inlet between Long Island and New Jersey and funnelled the Atlantic storm surge into the heart of New York City, inundating lower Manhattan with water and wreaking havoc on the surrounding boroughs.

"It was like an atomic explosion," recalls Dennis Diaz of the moment the rising waters reached the Con-Edison substation near the Lower East Side (LES) housing projects in south Manhattan.

"There was a beautiful blue colour, then an orange light," says Diaz, who was outdoors with other community members when the explosion occurred. "Everyone thought the electric current was going to run through the water. Cars were floating in the street from the flooding … it was insane."

Sandy, as the hurricane became known, caused around $71bn in damages and killed 117 people along the eastern seaboard. One third of those casualties were from New York City alone. The effect of the hurricane was disproportionately felt - the city's most vulnerable residents, people of low income and the elderly, were hardest hit.

Marilyn Santiago, 59, was on the fourth floor of the Jacob Riis public housing project in the LES, along with her sick and immobile husband, when the hurricane hit.

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