Why chronic floods are coming to New Jersey

Railroads aren’t great if they’re underwater.

Scientists have directly observed sea level rise since the late 18th century. And as they forecast the next 20, 50, and 100 years, sea level rise will continue to accelerate at an alarming rate. That rise won’t just threaten homeowners on the coast -- it will also impact the critical infrastructure that supports many of our largest cities.

While sea level rise is often phrased as an issue of concern in the future, we can already see some of the implications. Many coastal communities have witnessed a sharp uptick in flooding, during lunar king tide periods. Other places are forced to consider what life might be like as the land they currently occupy goes underwater.

For further reading on this subject, I recommend starting here:

Regional Plan Association ‘Under Water’ and 4th Plan reports for residents of the greater New York City metro area:

Sea Level Rise in New Jersey fact sheet from professors Kenneth Miller & Robert Kopp of Rutgers University

NOAA / NOS’s report on high tide flooding

[Vox]

Some annotations that might be interesting for the curious:



- Carlos W.

[LashanR]

The thought of being stuck on a train and waiting for high tide to go out before continuing is a powerful mental image. They should start using that in advertising campaigns.

[jamestang]

Time to hire the Dutch. They've been fighting the sea for 800 years and are still winning.

[fiiiftyfour]

Imagine living in New Jersey, waking up, opening YouTube and seeing this at the top of your sub box.



My day is already ruined.

[TheCuriousPsych]

Why are we still worrying about this?! I thought that by withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement this problem would magically go away.

[snekofspice]

Let's build a bunch of flood walls and make the ocean pay for it.

[stun]

I live in New Jersey and I love it so much and it’s so beautiful in my opinion

[tiarastevens]

I live in Jersey, go to rutgers, and take transit every day. I went to high school in Hoboken, and everytime it rained there was always flooding. This video touched a lot of bases with me and expressed what some new Jersey residents go through.

[hugoortega]

Being from NJ, I can tell you no one in that state even talks about this issue. NJ has been steadily eroding every natural region for the sake of fueling real estate bubbles. Even though numerous environmentalist warn that further erosion of these areas will have serious economic impact on the region. Hurricane Sandy was actually a vindication of many of those warnings, as the unspoken factor for the majority of the property damage along the coast was a consequence of lax zoning and environmental protection brought on by real estate developers lobbying. Many of those home owners were not even aware they bought a house on property that was deemed in a potentially dangerous or hazardous zone.

I don't think some of the major economic impacts will be as pronounced as the end of the video warned. In my opinion much of the infrastructure will be protected with retaining walls or raising them. In a longer timeline this environmental impact will have serious implication on the future growth and development of the Northeast Corridor, and we may start to see a new urban metropolis growing and supplanting NYC, but that might happen in 100 years. For the foreseeable future, no expense will be spared to maintain the viability of that corridor.

[NotBen]

The Newark airport is also in the meadowlands. Imagine having to wait for the sea level to go down in order to take off.

[nirybiry]

Ocean: accidentally spills its glass of water

[JeffLewis]

It's almost like there were warnings about rising sea levels that we ignored and continue to ignore.

[TommoCarroll]

Would love to hear people's thoughts on: *Prevent/Adapt/Retreat*

*Which do you think should be opted for and why?*

[DarkJonas]

I work as a stormwater engineer and Vox did a great job explaining this issue.

[Cris]

Why don’t people listen to smart people??

[kds]

Not for anything - it's not just New Jersey - but New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts on up the coast. And yeah - I've been through there on I-95 and I get wary of what's going to happen soon.I live in Providence and pretty near the Woonasquatucket river - and that baby floods every now and then particularly in the Valley section of Providence and what runs through there but the rails going south. And downtown Providence has flooded twice in the 20th century, 1938 and 1954. Now there are huge pumps and big barriers to eject storm water out. Plus two huge tunnels under the city to capture excess rainfall.

[OfficialUsername]

I drive by this area every day and never noticed this..thx Vox!

[camh]

i live in new jersey and this is the first time i have ever heard of this LMAo

[michaelcalabro]

Seeing my own city of Ocean City in this video was very eye opening, flooding has always been a problem but I'd only thought of it as an excuse to get school canceled. Time to start thinking towards the future so that my city will still be there in 20-50 years.

[nicholasbaum]

I've been living in my home state of New Jersey for all my life and this video is really powerful, because it doesn't effect all of New Jersey, but rather the coastal regions and the meadowlands. You see, New Jersey's economy is helped to really important industries, tourism and manufacturing, both of which can really be effected by high tides and rising sea levels. Water can easily flood places like Atlantic City, Cape May, Long Beach Island, and some hotspots for vacationers across the country. What can also be effected is our manufacturing economy. I like how Vox points out how we have to service and cope with New York City, where at the start of the Industrial Revolution, started building factories and power plants to help service the city, considering its close vicinity and low costs. In fact, Paterson, New Jersey, was chosen by Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton as the starting place of the Industrial Revolution, starting by the great Paterson Falls, the second highest waterfall in North America. However, while the state's manufacturing economy has withered away since the rise of labor unions and higher costs around the country for blue collar workers, New Jersey manufacturing has shrunk into two main areas, each for their respective cities. A strip of factories along the Delaware River servicing Philadelphia, and the manufacturing plants that service New York City which is in the Meadowlands area. What I'm trying to say is the threat of climate and change and rising sea levels can be such a hard blow to our state's economy, with at least thousands of jobs being abandoned in addition to as mentioned in the video, many homes and towns being abandoned as well. The meadowlands is in addition to being a manufacturing hub, a transportation hub, one that I have lived just minutes away from my entire life. New Jersey Transit, Garden State Parkway, New Jersey Turnpike, I-95, and Newark Liberty International Airport are all located in the Meadowlands area, because of all of its open space and close vicinity to New York City. Also by the meadowlands is both of New Jersey's largest cities, Newark and Jersey City. Both cities linger close to 300, 000 population mark, as they are both up and coming in alternative energies, insurance, medicine, and other economies. The rise in sea level can both effect these cities that serve New Jersey a lot, especially Newark, in which the downtown area is situated on the Passaic River, which is what separates the city of Newark from Harrison and Kearny, which is in the meadowlands. Same thing with Jersey City, where its downtown is on the Hudson River, but many of its homes and middle to lower class housing is next to the meadowlands, sparking a potential major evacuation. In the end, something needs to be done about this in New Jersey.