The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum anchored at Pier 86 in the Hudson River.
Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department station house was inundated with five feet of water after Sandy.
Art rooms in the basement of the Manhattan Youth Community Center were submerged by two million gallons of water.
Buildings at the St. John’s University Queens campus were damaged by Hurricane Sandy winds.
The Windansea implemented mitigation measures and sustained minor damage as a result.
The Liberty State Park pedestrian bridge was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.
In this section you will learn what four FEMA Public Assistance applicants experienced immediately following Hurricane Sandy and how they worked closely with FEMA staff during recovery. The intended audience for this section includes elected officials, media and the general public.
Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
For many Americans, their first glimpse of the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid came in 2004 when Nicolas Cage jumped off its deck in the movie “National Treasure,” or in 2007 when Will Smith’s character was driving golf balls off the ship toward the deserted west Manhattan skyline in the post-apocalyptic thriller “I Am Legend.”
Moored in the Hudson River at Pier 86, the towering World War II warship is now the home of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum and is a National Historic Landmark that hosts more than a million visitors annually.
But after being damaged by Hurricane Sandy, it was FEMA that threw the ship a lifeline by providing $13 million in funding for cleaning, rebuilding and strengthening the museum against future disasters.
The vessel – more than 870 feet long – saw combat in World War II and the Vietnam War, and was a recovery vessel for the Gemini and Mercury space capsules in the 1960s.
During World War II, the Intrepid survived being struck by several Japanese Kamikaze pilots who flew their bomb-laden planes into the ship. On another occasion, she rode out a Pacific typhoon at sea.
But heading out to sea wasn’t an option when Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012. The vessel had long since been converted to a floating museum and had no means of propulsion, according to museum president Susan Marenoff-Zausner.
“We were following and tracking the storm like everyone else,” she said, and readied the Intrepid as best they could. “We tied down the aircraft on the flight deck, removed any loose items that could blow around. And we arranged the mooring lines so the ship could ride up and down with the waves and wind.”
Marenoff-Zausner, who had been with the museum since 2003 and was named president in 2011, had seen the ship weather Hurricane Irene with hardly a scratch. Sandy was different.
The Intrepid receives its electric power from on shore and has a backup generator located on an elevated platform on its pier. When the power went out, the generator ran perfectly and kept the ship energized, but then the unexpected happened: Floodwaters inundated the entire pier, including the ship’s backup generator.
The loss of power meant the 19,000-square foot inflatable dome on Intrepid’s flight deck covering one of the ship’s most prized artifacts – the original Space Shuttle Enterprise – deflated. Whipping winds soon tore the fabric apart, destroying the $2 million structure.
While the shuttle suffered only minor damage and the ship itself was left largely unscathed, the welcome center on Pier 86 suffered extensive damage from flooding. Without power, the Intrepid was out of commission.
The nonprofit organization that owns and operates the vessel – as well as a Cold War-era submarine – met with officials from FEMA to discuss what could be done.
“The emergency repairs got us back up and running in about 8 weeks,” Marenoff-Zausner said. “We were able to seal our electrical room and move a lot of our electrical and life safety equipment to the second floor of the welcome center.”
To further mitigate against future storms, heating, cooling, and water/septic equipment was moved from the dock onto the ship and the pavilion over the space shuttle was reconstructed with a stronger steel frame. The shuttle pavilion opened in July 2013 and the rebuilding of the welcome center was completed this past summer.
For a nonprofit that had lost considerable revenue from visitors and private events during the down period and been forced to furlough staff, getting back to full operations was crucial. “The level of understanding about what we had to do and why was enormous,” she said. “It was a unique time and it definitely brought people together.”
As a secure “building” with land, sea and air access, Intrepid accommodated roughly 500 FBI agents and other law enforcement officials who fielded about half a million phone calls during the initial investigation into the 9/11 attacks.
“We actually were called after Sandy to see if we could do the same,” Marenoff-Zausner said. “But we couldn’t because our power was out.” The new generator set up means the Intrepid would be able to serve as a command center, hospital, or shelter in future emergencies.
“In addition to its importance as a cultural and historic resource, the Intrepid is a facility that New York City’s first responders may find useful in the event of an emergency,” said John Covell, Director of the New York Sandy Recovery Office. “Incorporating resiliency into the Intrepid Museum while its welcome center was being rebuilt was a decision to enhance the safety of the whole community.”
“We have an opportunity every day to give back to the community, and FEMA allowed us to continue to do just that — I hope everyone realizes how grateful we are,” Marenoff-Zausner said.
Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department
The 3,000 inhabitants of Broad Channel, a tiny Queens community on the only inhabited island in Jamaica Bay, have long been aware of their isolation from the rest of the New York City. Broad Channel residents accept the risks of living in a neighborhood accessible only by bridge, subway or boat, and know that during an emergency they may be on their own.
To protect the community from fire, in 1905 the Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department was formed as a bucket brigade and was formally recognized two years later.
The fire station was completed in 1908 and the red-shingled building is still in use today, though not by choice. The nonprofit, which long operated in a space inadequate for modern fire trucks, has been working since 1994 to raise money to build a new station. Through help from FEMA’s Public Assistance program, the department is well on its way to moving into a new space.
“This area is not only flood-prone, this is a heavily traveled road,” said Chief Rob Leonard, pointing out nearby churches and a subway station along the narrow street. “It’s not an ideal place to move and deploy fire apparatus.”
In fact, the department has long used the nearby American Legion, on higher ground, as an alternate staging area when flooding threatened the fire station as it did before Sandy made landfall. “Little did we know the Legion was going to flood, too,” Chief Leonard said.
In fact much of the island was underwater from an unusually high tide hours before Sandy even hit. And when the storm made landfall, flooding both ends of all bridges to the island, plans to reinforce the department from outside were useless.
Five feet of water filled the 104-year-old fire station, yet it was still able to serve as a nerve center for recovery efforts.
“We were on our own for a few days,” said Leonard, who had to leave the island before the storm hit to go to his job as a dispatcher with the field communications unit for the New York City fire department and a member of its Incident Management Team.
For the VFD members who were on Broad Channel, the water was relentless and deep. Downed power lines made every call a potentially lethal hazard until exploding transformers ultimately left the entire island without electricity. “The water current at Church Street was flowing across the island,” said Lt. Matt Troy. Even though he and his peers were in cold water rescue suits they still feared being swept away.
Troy – then a firefighter/EMT – recalled trying to wade through the chest-deep water to respond to a report of a house fire with a family trapped inside. On the contrary, the furnace had actually backfired as a result of flooding, filling the house with smoke.
Two fire trucks, two ambulances and a few vehicles were deemed complete losses due to flooding. Donated fire trucks kept the department’s 52 members mobile and the community protected.
Roughly $2.2 million in FEMA assistance has been obligated to the organization for emergency protective services and to cover the repair and replacement of damaged or destroyed contents, vehicles and equipment. Of this amount, nearly $1.9 million will be used to replace the fire station with a state-of-the-art facility at a different location which will be far less susceptible to flooding. The elevated and flood-protected building will be able to serve as a command center in the event of an emergency, and will include a backup generator and solar panels to increase resilience.
“We hope to have it finished by late 2016 or early 2017,” said BCVFD President Daniel McIntyre.
“This is the most extreme form of mitigation that FEMA practices – completely relocating a vulnerable facility to remove it from harm’s way,” said FEMA’s Deputy Public Assistance Branch Leader Frank Bologna of the New York Sandy Recovery Office. “The fact that the old station was undersized and virtually obsolete only highlights the benefit of this improved project.”
The BCVFD, along with the rest of the Broad Channel community, continues to recover. Many houses still need repair, and a number of residents moved off the island after losing their homes and possessions to Sandy. The VFD has been reduced to about 30 volunteers.
“It’s been tough … the only silver lining is the new station,” Chief Leonard said. “But we’re still here for the community.”
Manhattan Youth Community Center
Since its humble beginnings as a provider of youth services to Lower Manhattan residents in 1986, Manhattan Youth, a nonprofit organization whose mission includes providing the highest quality childcare and after-school programs, has seen rapid growth over the past 29 years.
Currently they serve approximately 6,000 clients annually. The organization operates after-school programs in local public elementary and middle schools, a service which is crucial for Lower Manhattan’s working families, and operates multiple facilities at Pier 25 in Hudson River Park.
For Robert Townley, the nonprofit’s founder and executive director, Hurricane Sandy wasn’t the first disaster he and his team had experienced. After the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, some of the debris ended up in the community center's swimming pool and the pier was used for debris removal. Despite the unimaginable tragedy of that day and emotional impact on the community and the city, Manhattan Youth sprang into action. They rallied the community and supported rebuilding efforts.
Then, in 2012, the organization faced Hurricane Sandy. For Townley, who grew up in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn and had experience riding out hurricanes , the fuss over Sandy seemed excessive. He recalled telling some people they were “overreacting.”
“I ate my words,” he said. While the center had taken the necessary precautions, including sandbagging the adjacent parking facility, the tidal surge that swamped Lower Manhattan was more than anyone had expected.
Water poured into the lower levels of the parking garage, then burst open the steel doors to the community center’s boiler room. Floodwaters also ravaged the upper floors, leaving only the offices on the second story dry.
During Sandy, the center employed 250 people serving thousands of area families with daycare, after-school programs and arts and cultural events.“I knew we had to rebuild,” Townley said. “I knew we’d be offline for a while but we had to rebuild.”
His team’s first meeting with FEMA representatives gave him reason to be optimistic; they couldn’t promise anything, but they provided encouragement through the possibility of funding assistance.
“We didn’t feel intimidated by the process at all,” Townley said. “We knew it would be time-consuming, and hard, but it gave us hope. And with hope, we didn’t have to layoff anyone.”
The group reached out to contractors in the community to help pump out the roughly two million gallons of contaminated sea water, and used volunteer labor to muck out the flooded basement levels and first floor.
They were ready to begin renovations in January 2013; by September of that year, the majority of the facility was completely restored and opened.
“The services provided by non-profit groups like Manhattan Youth are vital to maintaining strong communities, especially those recovering from disasters,” said Deputy Public Assistance Branch Leader Frank Bologna. “Supporting them is a key element of the whole community recovery process.”
Total funding came from state, local and federal sources. The nearly $1.5 million in FEMA funding helped clean up and repair the damaged floors, as well as replaced the center’s lost contents including their audio visual equipment, refrigerators, furniture and school supplies.
Today, the center employs roughly 600 people and serves about 4,000 families annually with its after-school programs and another 2,000 families during other periods.
“People go to work, they need a place for their kids to stay,” Townley said. “We’re a very important part of the community and the state and federal government recognized that.”
St. John’s University
When Hurricane Sandy struck the New York City area in October 2012, officials at St. John’s University were faced with a complex set of challenges.
The 145-year old private Roman Catholic college’s 21,000 undergraduate and graduate students and 1,500 faculty members were scattered across four campuses located in three of the city’s boroughs and on Long Island.
The Queens, Staten Island and Manhattan campuses all feature student housing. So when 2 feet of water filled the basement of the Manhattan building, knocking out power and utilities, the students and professors lost not only their classrooms but their living and dining facilities as well. “(The storm) displaced students, interrupted the curriculum, disrupted faculty and even meals,” said James Abbatello, the university’s assistant controller. “We had to find a way to feed them … and house them.”
Fortunately, Abbatello and the school had some experience dealing with FEMA during Hurricane Irene in 2011. One of the lessons learned was the importance of keeping detailed records of expenses to ensure full reimbursement. As they relocated the 116 students from the crippled Manhattan campus to dorm space in Queens and alternative housing, they meticulously documented their expenses.
“We’re here to educate the students, and with the help of FEMA we were able to get back on track,” he said, noting the school relocated the Manhattan campus’ classrooms to the nearby New York Marriott Conference Center.
The flagship campus in Jamaica, Queens faced a different challenge. Wind knocked down trees and took out power in some buildings, most importantly the sprawling St. Albert Hall, which houses the school’s biology and pharmacological research labs and other experimental facilities.
Without electricity, freezers and refrigerators containing scientific specimens, cell cultures and temperature-sensitive chemicals thawed.
Backup generators were ultimately brought in to fill the gap, but some lab specimens and research perished. According to Dr. Laura Schramm, Ph.D., two of her doctoral students lost between two and three years of samples related to research on BRF2, a cancer-causing gene, with a potential use in the diagnosis of the disease and determining appropriate cancer treatment regimens. This set research for their thesis back a full year.
FEMA-funded backup generators now ensure that this crucial facility will be able to withstand a future power outage. The university received $780,548 for mitigation to reduce the impact of future storms or disasters.
“There’s intrinsic value (of the work) we lost that we cannot recover,” said Abbatello. “But we hope that with this mitigation, it will never happen again.”
The $2.9 million the private non-profit received from FEMA also paid to dewater the Manhattan campus building, replace destroyed boilers and air conditioning units and restore floors damaged by floodwater.
FEMA also funded the removal of downed trees at the Staten Island, Oakdale and Queens campuses, as well as repairs to some buildings. Sporting equipment such as a batting cage and tennis courts that were either damaged or destroyed was also replaced. The Staten Island campus received $56,000 while the Oakdale and Queens campuses received $180,000 and $1 million respectively.
For a university whose students contribute heavily to their respective neighborhoods – not only by living there but by volunteering time to the school’s Bread & Life Program which serves low-income New Yorkers – the impact of restoring a sense of normality after Sandy was felt by many.
“In a disaster where the damage is measured in billions of dollars, a $3-million dollar project may appear small,” said FEMA Deputy Public Assistance Branch Leader Frank Bologna of the New York Sandy Recovery Office. “But for these institutions the aid FEMA provides is enormous in terms of helping them recover quickly and continue their mission.”
Abbatello credited the cooperation between FEMA, the state of New York and other government entities with making the recovery process as smooth as possible.
“Everyone who walked through the door was very professional, they understood what shape the university was in after Sandy and really helped us.”
Mitigation Efforts Paid Off For Highlands Restaurateurs
One month after Superstorm Sandy, Dan Shields and his business partner, Robert Higgins, were thanking their lucky stars.
Their waterfront restaurant, Windansea in Highlands, had withstood the raging flood tides and winds of Sandy with only relatively minor damage.
The rest of Highlands was not so fortunate. Flood waters had inundated dozens of homes and businesses in the low-lying sections of the borough. Debris littered the streets; a mobile home park on the north side of the borough was in shambles.
As flood waters receded in the business district, store owners had to reckon with the physical destruction of their businesses and the loss of their livelihoods.
Many of Shields’ and Higgins’ fellow restaurateurs were essentially out of business for the long term, faced with major damage from the storm.
What saved Windansea?
The borough’s new building code that required properties in flood zones to comply with tough new Federal Emergency Management standards. “We had to stick to ‘V’ zone construction,” said Shields, referring to the strictest standards for properties located in high-risk flood zones. “I felt like we were the poster child for FEMA.”
When the business partners bought the restaurant in 2000 for $690,000, they planned to invest approximately $300,000 in renovating the old restaurant, formerly known as Branin’s Wharf. But as work on the building progressed, hidden problems came to the surface. “It was just a terrible, terrible building.” Ultimately, more than 50 percent of the existing building had to be demolished. One day, as they worked on the restaurant, officials from FEMA and the borough drove up and told them to stop work. “You’ve got to do it our way,” they told the partners.
The structure would have to be rebuilt in compliance with FEMA standards for “V” zone construction, the strictest standard that applies to properties at high risk of flooding.
To put it mildly, the partners were not happy. The shoestring budget they had assembled to pay for what they thought would be a fairly simple remodeling job wouldn’t cover the extensive construction that the town demanded. “It was a completely different animal from buying a little restaurant and (fixing it up),” Shields said.
Making the bayfront building flood-resistant required driving 80 pilings that measured 12 inches in diameter into the ground to a depth of 30 to 40 feet, reinforcing the roof and walls with steel rods and connecting the elements of the entire structure with steel plates and structural steel to hold the floor to the walls.
The project took a year longer than the partners anticipated and cost over $1 million more than they had originally budgeted.
“I felt like I was victimized,” Shields told the Asbury Park Press a few weeks after the storm, “like FEMA was trying to prove a point, trying to flex their muscles and trying to take it out on a little guy like me.”
He doesn’t feel that way anymore.
Though the building sustained some damage to its first floor lobbies and outdoor Tiki bar, Windansea was able to re-open less than three weeks after the storm. “There was not a crack in the sheetrock, not a thing out of place.”
Video-links: Avanti Linens Recovery and Mitigation Efforts, NJ Stronger Than The Storm Ribbon Cutting
Bridging a Link to History at Liberty State Park
When it comes to destruction, disasters like Superstorm Sandy don’t discriminate:historic structures and environmentally sensitive areas that lie in the path of a storm are in just as much peril as less significant sites.
But when a historic structure or ecologically fragile area is damaged in a disaster, particular care must be taken to ensure that any repair or remediation that must take place is done in accordance with historic and environmental regulations.
To accomplish that, state, county and local officials in the impacted area are able to draw on the support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Environmental and Historic Preservation Specialists.
The EHP cadre plays a critical role in helping municipalities and agencies understand the importance of compliance with environmental and cultural regulations so they may make informed planning decisions.
EHP provides expertise and technical assistance to FEMA staff, local, state and federal partners and applicants who are tasked with the challenge of preserving historic, cultural and natural aspects of our national heritage. They help applicants understand what is required under the law and how best to meet those requirements.
At Liberty State Park, which is adjacent to Jersey City, Superstorm Sandy destroyed a popular pedestrian bridge that provided access to the park for walkers and cyclists in the Jersey City area.
With the help of specialists from FEMA’s Environmental and Historic Preservation Department, city officials acted quickly to develop a plan for reconstructing the bridge.
The city applied for a FEMA Public Assistance grant which, if the project was approved, would reimburse the city for most of the reconstruction costs.
Because the original bridge traversed environmentally sensitive wetlands, it was important that any new construction be environmentally acceptable and that it occupy the same footprint as the previous bridge.
The park, an oasis of green space adjacent to the bustle of Jersey City, offers recreational facilities, a science museum, and several historic sites including the historic Central Railroad of New Jersey terminal where new immigrants arriving from Ellis Island boarded the trains that would take them to new lives across America.
The park is also the site of a memorial honoring those who died in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, titled Empty Sky. It is the most heavily visited park in the state.
Located just across the river from lower Manhattan, Liberty State Park also played a critical role following the attacks of 9/11 as a staging area for first responders.
With so many reasons for area residents to visit the park, restoring access via the pedestrian bridge was a priority for Jersey City officials.
The cost of replacing the 120-foot-long, 10-foot-wide bridge replacement project was estimated at $834,600. Jersey City’s Assistant City Engineer Jeff Reeves chose a pre-fabricated bridge that could be lifted onto the foundation via a crane. The pre-made span cost $160,000.
Restoring the foundation cost an additional $650,000, which included the demolition of the remnants of the original bridge and the installation of necessary components such as foundation “riprap.”
The final cost for reconstruction of the foundation and replacement of the pedestrian bridge came in under budget at $755,642 which represents the 90% federal share of the total cost.
Because the total cost of disaster recovery in New Jersey exceeded a benchmark set by the federal government according to a specific formula, the federal share of the cost of the bridge replacement was increased to 90 percent with the remaining 10 percent borne by the state and the City of Jersey City.
On June 20, 2013, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy dedicated the new bridge, which has been officially named the “Ethel Pesin Liberty Footbridge” in memory of the woman who, with her husband, Morris, worked tirelessly to establish the park. A community leader and founding trustee of the Friends of Liberty State Park, Pesin died early in 2013.
“We know how important this piece of infrastructure is to our residents, and that is why we worked with OEM and our engineering staff to find a way to expedite the replacement of the Jersey Avenue footbridge,” the mayor said.
Today, walkers and cyclists are again able to enjoy the recreational facilities at Liberty State Park and visit the park’s historic sites via the Jersey Avenue Bridge.
And because of the teamwork between state and local officials and FEMA’s EHP experts, the environmentally sensitive wetlands that surround the bridge have been protected.
Please be sure to watch the video titled, “Apr 17, 2013- Liberty State Park - A Gift Worth Saving” at //www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/videos/82646