Hurricane Sandy and the Case for Resilient Design
While most of us in the Northeast were making last-minute preparations for the massive storm on Monday, I was sitting in Hartford’s Bradley Airport, about to catch one of the last flights out before the airport closed down. Ironically, I was on my way to sunny Florida to give a long-planned keynote presentation on resilient design at the Sustainable Communities Workshop in Sarasota. Despite my pangs of guilt for leaving home and not being there to pull out my chainsaw should the need arise, getting the word out on resilient design remains a top priority for me, and I stuck with my plans. It...
Read MoreSea-level Rise, Storm Surges, and Delaware’s Resilience Challenge (with a Sandy update)
Update Note, October 30, 2012 With Post-tropical Cyclone Sandy still whirling around somewhere to my west, the article below feels prescient. It wasn’t of course – there was no advance knowledge of this particular storm – but what just happened with Sandy is well in line with climate change trends. It had been many decades since a hurricane of this magnitude made landfall in or near Delaware, but the conditions were just right, including record-high late-October ocean temperatures in the high 70s (F) to give the storm extra power as it crossed the coastline. Had Sandy...
Read MoreHand Pumps: An Option for Back-Up Water Pumping
Last month Jerelyn and I enjoyed a four-day vacation in Maine—a combined trip to visit family, explore Acadia National Park, and go to the Common Ground Fair—my first visit there in two or three decades! The highlight of the Common Ground fair for me was coming across a little company, Bison Pumps, based up near Fort Kent, Maine (in WAY northern Maine) that makes really slick hand pumps. These pumps are sort-of like the ones our grandparents used, but they’re built with much greater precision and work much better. Why hand pumps are important Here in rural Vermont—like rural areas...
Read MoreGasoline Shortages in Southern California
A series of disruptions in petroleum refineries in Southern California has resulted in surging gasoline prices in recent days and spot shortages. A New York Times article Saturday morning (10/6/12) described makeshift signs at gas stations that had run out of gasoline altogether and prices that had spiked by as much as 20 cents per gallon overnight at others. Already, California gasoline prices were the highest in the nation: an average of $4.49 per gallon, 70¢ above the national average. The problems resulted from an August 6th fire at a Chevron refinery in Richmond, California that...
Read MoreNew York City’s (Lack of) Resilience
There’s a great article in today’s New York Times, “New York is Lagging as Seas and Risks Rise.” In a nutshell, with 520 miles of shoreline, New York City is highly vulnerable to rising sea level and storm surges, and the City isn’t doing enough to address its vulnerabilities. The City is already working to expand protective wetlands, install green roofs to limit runoff, encourage property owners to elevate mechanical equipment, and elevate subway ventilation grates (see photo). I was actually involved in the City’s Green Codes Task Force a couple years ago to address such measures—and...
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