Skip to main content
Climate
Search

Main navigation

  • Climate 101
    • What We Know
    • What Can Be Done
    • Climate Primer
  • Explore
    • Explainers
    • Ask MIT Climate
    • Podcast
    • For Educators
  • MIT Action
    • News
    • Events
    • Resources
  • Search
MIT

Main navigation

  • Climate 101
    • What We Know
    • What Can Be Done
    • Climate Primer
  • Explore
    • Explainers
    • Ask MIT Climate
    • Podcast
    • For Educators
  • MIT Action
    • News
    • Events
    • Resources
  • Search
PostSeptember 3, 2021

How Ida dodged NYC’s flood defenses

Rain from Hurricane Ida floods the basement of a fast food restaurant in the Bronx.

Floods killed at least two dozen people as Hurricane Ida swept through New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania on the night of September 1. This devastation is on top of the 13 who died and the million who lost power when the storm hit Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama last weekend.

As the storm moved up the East Coast, New York City was hit particularly hard. Over three inches of rain fell in Central Park within an hour, breaking a record set just over a week before. Floodwaters turned parkways into canals and subway steps into waterfalls, leaving residents stranded or trapped. This despite billions of dollars the city has spent to improve its flood defenses since Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Extreme storms are now becoming more common as climate change makes rainfall more severe, and storms will get worse with further warming. There’s still a lot that cities need to figure out to prepare for the resulting threats, which can range from flash floods to storm surges. Adapting will take time and money—decades in some cases, and hundreds of billions of dollars. But climate change and adaptation efforts are running at different speeds, writes Casey Crownhart for the MIT Technology Review.

Read the full article at: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/03/1034315/ida-dodged-nyc-flood-defenses-climate-change-storm/

Image credits: Getty

by MIT Technology Review
Topics
Adaptation
Cities & Planning
Weather & Natural Disasters
Flooding
Hurricanes

Related Posts

PostOctober 2, 2025

Lincoln Lab unveils the most powerful AI supercomputer at any US university...

MIT Lincoln Laboratory
System Engineer Antonio Rosa inspects equipment in the Lincoln Laboratory Supercomputing Center .
PostSeptember 30, 2025

3 Questions: Addressing the world’s most pressing challenges

MIT News
“Our center was founded in response to rising geopolitical tensions and the urgent need for policy rooted in rigorous, evidence-based research,” says Mihaela Papa. “Today, as in our early years, the center brings together exceptional researchers with the ambition to address the world’s most pressing challenges in new and creative ways.”
PostSeptember 25, 2025

From Tank to Odometer: Winners and Losers from a Gas-to-VMT Tax Shift

MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research
heavy traffic on a US expressway
PostSeptember 22, 2025

Power-outage exercises strengthen the resilience of US bases

MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Lincoln Laboratory researchers Jean Sack (left) and Christopher Lashway have conducted dozens of Energy Resilience Readiness Exercises at military installations across the nation and abroad.

MIT Climate News in Your Inbox

 
 

MIT Groups Log In

Log In

Footer

  • About
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Accessibility
  • Contact
MIT Climate Project
MIT
Communicator Award Winner
Communicator Award Winner