Sea wall, other options being considered to protect Hoboken: report

The storm surge from Hurricane Sandy Oct. 29, 2012 left half of Hoboken flooded with sewage-laden water and some 20,000 residents trapped in apartments. Photo by Charles Hack/The Jersey Journal

HOBOKEN — Mayor Dawn Zimmer told the Wall Street Journal that she wants new flood protection in place in Hoboken by the end of 2013.

And to find solutions to flooding, Zimmer told the newspaper that she is putting together a task force of property owners, local officials and engineers from the Stevens Institute to discuss the city's flood-protection options to do the job.

To see the full story visit the Wall Street Journal.

Hurricane Sandy pushed floodwaters into the city from Weehawken Cove in the north and from Long Slip Canal in the south flooding more than half the city for days.

One of the ideas would be a sea wall at the Long Slip Canal next to NJ Transit's rail yards that was overwhelmed by Sandy's storm surge, Ron Hine, director of the Fund for a Better Waterfront said.

Another idea is put the city's power substations on platforms after most of the city lost power after Sandy flooded two of three substations; as well as zoning changes to prevent the building of ground-floor apartments in flood zones.

"We have to think outside a box," Zimmer is quoted as saying. "I don't want to be going into hurricane season with my substations exposed."

Protective structures also have been proposed for New York City, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg has rejected projects such as a sea wall as too costly.

"Hoboken is small enough. Maybe some crazy idea would be useful," Philip Orton, a research scientist and storm-surge expert at the Stevens Institute of Technology, a private university in Hoboken, told the Wall Street Journal.

 

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