Hurricane Sandy OBS (Part ii)

[Hailstorm]

Not saying those figures are 100% correct. But water depth levels are almost always lower towards the midpoint of a block than the intersections because of the strategic way the DOT intentionally inclines streets to avoid runoff issues. So, elevations at the intersections of streets will usually be lower than the midpoints of blocks, unless you are on a natural topographical slope.

[Hailstorm]

jm1220: I am sorry for what you've been through. I am just curious. though. Did you use sandbags to attempt to safeguard your home? If so, did they reduce the damage? If you did not, do you think they would have made any difference based on what you saw in your area?

The reason I'm asking is because the surge just missed me by less than one block. I just want to get the real sense of the truth or myth about the effectiveness of sandbag barriers in case a cyclone ever hits this area again.

[bluewave]

jm1220: I am sorry for what you've been through. I am just curious. though. Did you use sandbags to attempt to safeguard your home? If so, did they reduce the damage? If you did not, do you think they would have made any difference based on what you saw in your area?

The reason I'm asking is because the surge just missed me by less than one block. I just want to get the real sense of the truth or myth about the effectiveness of sandbag barriers in case a cyclone ever hits this area again.

 

I can give you my take on how the sandbags worked from what I saw with my friends. It seemed like the sandbags were fairly

effective in places where they weren't overtopped by the surge. My friend had sandbags up against his garage and side door

with only an inch of water seeping in about three feet into the front of the room near the door. This video from Laurelton BLVD

shows the overtopping process beginning before they were completely flooded out.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xYCED0t8TOk

[Hailstorm]

Interesting. How high was the water depth outside of the garage and how high was the sandbag barrier?

[jm1220]

jm1220: I am sorry for what you've been through. I am just curious. though. Did you use sandbags to attempt to safeguard your home? If so, did they reduce the damage? If you did not, do you think they would have made any difference based on what you saw in your area?

The reason I'm asking is because the surge just missed me by less than one block. I just want to get the real sense of the truth or myth about the effectiveness of sandbag barriers in case a cyclone ever hits this area again.

I placed sandbags outside my home but they did not stop the water from coming in because it came up through floorboards, and through the pipes. The water table literally rose so high that everything flooded regardless. That's why it was so difficult to pump basements out afterward-the water table remained extremely elevated for days. In a place that has a stronger foundation where the water has a more difficult time penetrating the sewage system, sandbags could be more helpful I would think.

[jm1220]

I can give you my take on how the sandbags worked from what I saw with my friends. It seemed like the sandbags were fairly

effective in places where they weren't overtopped by the surge. My friend had sandbags up against his garage and side door

with only an inch of water seeping in about three feet into the front of the room near the door. This video from Laurelton BLVD

shows the overtopping process beginning before they were completely flooded out.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xYCED0t8TOk

I live up Laurelton Blvd but close to the bay side. Right about then is when water started really coming in and overwhelming the island. Again, sandbags didn't help my place or anyone's on my block. The only houses that were saved were ones that were built on some kind of a hill or you had to walk up stairs to get in.

[bluewave]

Interesting. How high was the water depth outside of the garage and how high was the sandbag barrier?

 

He lives in one of the highest parts of Long Beach and only had about 6-8 inches of water around his house

above the curb to the street. His sandbag barrier was about 2  feet high which was enough for him.

His downstairs apartment was about a six inch step down below the grade. A neighbor across the street

without any sandbags lost all their belongings in a similar step down first floor apartment. A reporter

did a short interview with him while he placing  the sandbags against his house. It was a lot

of work loading up and placing all the bags on his own, but it saved him from some very expensive

flood damage.

 

[bluewave]

I live up Laurelton Blvd but close to the bay side. Right about then is when water started really coming in and overwhelming the island. Again, sandbags didn't help my place or anyone's on my block. The only houses that were saved were ones that were built on some kind of a hill or you had to walk up stairs to get in.

 

I lived in a basement apartment on Laurelton near Market from 1968 to 1972 and got flooded during Agnes in 1972 when rainwater

backed up over a blocked drain. Unfortunately, Laurelton is one of the lowest spots in that section of town. I was visiting friends

a few weeks back and noticed the saltwater marks on the high lawns at some of the old houses near Laurelton and Beech and Olive

Streets. Some of the flooding looked  to be about 4 feet high while standing on the sidewalk near those corners. I was very saddened

to see the extent of the damages especially in the lower parts of town.

[jm1220]

I lived in a basement apartment on Laurelton near Market from 1968 to 1972 and got flooded during Agnes in 1972 when rainwater

backed up over a blocked drain. Unfortunately, Laurelton is one of the lowest spots in that section of town. I was visiting friends

a few weeks back and noticed the saltwater marks on the high lawns at some of the old houses near Laurelton and Beech and Olive

Streets. Some of the flooding looked  to be about 4 feet high while standing on the sidewalk near those corners. I was very saddened

to see the extent of the damages especially in the lower parts of town.

The water by my house close to the bay got to about 3.5 feet or so-there's a metal fence near my house that's about 4 ft. high and water just about made it to the top. Water also came about to the top of the bushes in front of the house. The water came very fast down the street, within a few minutes or so.

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

He lives in one of the highest parts of Long Beach and only had about 6-8 inches of water around his house

above the curb to the street. His sandbag barrier was about 2  feet high which was enough for him.

His downstairs apartment was about a six inch step down below the grade. A neighbor across the street

without any sandbags lost all their belongings in a similar step down first floor apartment. A reporter

did a short interview with him while he placing  the sandbags against his house. It was a lot

of work loading up and placing all the bags on his own, but it saved him from some very expensive

flood damage.

 

The Pacific area is definitely high I have friend with a ground floor apartment that didn't flood (talk about lucky) I wonder why considering they bulldozed down the dunes and pretty much made the island flat in the Reynolds days.

[Hailstorm]

Thanks for the info, bluewave and jm1220.

According to Google Earth, my elevation is 13 feet AMSL. I live just 5 blocks north of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. I live in a one-story 1920's bungalow with a basement that goes 8 feet under the foundation; and there are 4 basement wells with windows. The house is mostly constructed of aluminum siding. I assume that sandbags would do very little to safeguard the house I am in, based on your posts and the above info I have about the details of the house. Am I correct to say that the house I am in and the other neighbors' similar houses on the block I reside in are very vulnerable?

[bluewave]

The water by my house close to the bay got to about 3.5 feet or so-there's a metal fence near my house that's about 4 ft. high and water just about made it to the top. Water also came about to the top of the bushes in front of the house. The water came very fast down the street, within a few minutes or so.

 

I spoke to someone who lives on Bay Drive Near Magnolia and Laurelton. He told me that while he was upstairs he heard a very

loud crash on the first floor. The picture window imploded from the force of the waves and water and he had fish flopping around

on the floor of his living room.

[bluewave]

The Pacific area is definitely high I have friend with a ground floor apartment that didn't flood (talk about lucky) I wonder why considering they bulldozed down the dunes and pretty much made the island flat in the Reynolds days.

 

I also have a friend on Pacific and she didn't get any water in her place either. The highest part of the Presidents Streets is near the corner

of Broadway and it gently slopes down as you move north to Walnut. My friends on the corner of Walnut have a slope down driveway

which quickly flooded with water once the surge breached the curb. Like you mentioned, the force of the 

surge and wave action to knock that huge boulder off the Roosevelt Jetty was amazing. 

 

 

 

[jm1220]

I also have a friend on Pacific and she didn't get any water in her place either. The highest part of the Presidents Streets is near the corner

of Broadway and it gently slopes down as you move north to Walnut. My friends on the corner of Walnut have a slope down driveway

which quickly flooded with water once the surge breached the curb. Like you mentioned, the force of the 

surge and wave action to knock that huge boulder off the Roosevelt Jetty was amazing. 

Makes you wonder how Lido Towers got so badly damaged then. From what I hear it's still uninhabitable.

[bluewave]

Makes you wonder how Lido Towers got so badly damaged then. From what I hear it's still uninhabitable.

 

The interesting thing about the Lido Towers location is that the shoreline cuts back in toward the north as you get east of the

Pacific BLVD location. When you cross maple BLVD onto Richmond in front of the towers, there is a noticeable drop in

elevation. The beach was so short in front of the towers, that the small dune was eroded quicker. The surge rushed

around the towers and knocked town the walls that surrounded the property. The President Streets were also helped

out by the big wall of buildings from the Sunrise Point East to the Executive towers. This video shows the force of the

surge at the corner of Richmond and Maple where the elevation drops off. It was strong enough to float a car up

onto the corner there. Just west heading toward Cleveland, Harding, and Mitchell  there was about a foot more elevation

that made a big difference. I spoke to a guy on the corner of Harding and Broadway, and he had no water enter his

apartment.

 

 

[jm1220]

The interesting thing about the Lido Towers location is that the shoreline cuts back in toward the north as you get east of the

Pacific BLVD location. When you cross maple BLVD onto Richmond in front of the towers, there is a noticeable drop in

elevation. The beach was so short in front of the towers, that the small dune was eroded quicker. The surge rushed

around the towers and knocked town the walls that surrounded the property. The President Streets were also helped

out by the big wall of buildings from the Sunrise Point East to the Executive towers. This video shows the force of the

surge at the corner of Richmond and Maple where the elevation drops off. It was strong enough to float a car up

onto the corner there. Just west heading toward Cleveland, Harding, and Mitchell  there was about a foot more elevation

that made a big difference. I spoke to a guy on the corner of Harding and Broadway, and he had no water enter his

apartment.

 

 

I think a lot of homes near the beach are somewhat lucky that large condos and apartments line Broadway and Shore Road and absorbed the direct wave action and fast moving water-if they didn't, we would have scenes much like the NJ coast where homes were washed inland and away. One incredibly lucky thing is that I believe there were no deaths in Long Beach, which stunned me given the amount of single story bungalows in the West End and basements populated with the elderly. I was quite worried about a high death toll given the speed at which the water came in and the fact that very many people stayed.

[bluewave]

 

I think a lot of homes near the beach are somewhat lucky that large condos and apartments line Broadway and Shore Road and absorbed the direct wave action and fast moving water-if they didn't, we would have scenes much like the NJ coast where homes were washed inland and away. One incredibly lucky thing is that I believe there were no deaths in Long Beach, which stunned me given the amount of single story bungalows in the West End and basements populated with the elderly. I was quite worried about a high death toll given the speed at which the water came in and the fact that very many people stayed.

 

I think that even though some neighborhoods were with inundated with 3-5 feet of water around their houses, people were able to

go upstairs or to a neighbor with a second floor which made a big difference. I heard an account of a woman who lived near

the hospital that had to put her child on her shoulders and flee through chest deep water to get to a neighbor with a second

floor.

 

Some of the old timers who built in Long Beach had the foresight to raise up the elevation of their property.

You can see in this photo that I took how the water only made it to the first step of a house on the corner

of Mitchell and Broadway.

 

 

 

Right across on the south side of Broadway there, the condo developers build downward sloping driveways

which easily flooded out.

 

 

 

[bluewave]

A great local Long Beach photographer put together an excellent montage of still photographs 

and videos documenting her experience with Sandy. Her vantage point for the storm was near

the intersection of Lincoln Blvd and East Broadway.

 

[bluewave]

This is a great video showing the storm surge in the Westholme section Of Long Beach:

 

 

[jm1220]

This is a great video showing the storm surge in the Westholme section Of Long Beach:

 

 

I saw my house on that video. Gut-wrenching watching videos like this again and reliving these memories again. After Sandy, I'll never root on a hurricane to hit our area again. The devastation we had from that is more than enough for one lifetime.

[bluewave]

I saw my house on that video. Gut-wrenching watching videos like this again and reliving these memories again. After Sandy, I'll never root on a hurricane to hit our area again. The devastation we had from that is more than enough for one lifetime.

 

Yeah, I can't wait to see the first section of the new boardwalk that opens on Saturday.

 

http://liherald.com/longbeach/stories/Boardwalk-to-open-Saturday,48970

 

 

 

ALEXANDRA SPYCHALSKY/HERALD

[Rjay]

Yea me too. Being close to LB, it was always nice to walk on the board walk a couple times a year. I'll never forget Sandy being on the south shore of LI. in a side note, Idk if people realize that we prob got at least a few gusts near or above 100 mph with multiple rounds of gust 80+ besides the devastating storm surge.

[jm1220]

Yea me too. Being close to very LB, it was always nice to walk on the board walk a couple times a year. I'll never forget Sandy being on the south shore of LI. in a side note, Idk if people realize that we prob got at least a few gusts near or above 100 mph with multiple rounds of gust 80+ besides the devastating storm surge.

I think our area in general had some of the highest winds in the whole storm, as the showery rain moved through on the NE side and the low level jet maximized over us and was able to reach the surface at times. But I'm not sure we had 100-mph gusts-if that were the case, structural damage would have been more severe. There probably would have been some roofs ripped off and other structural damage like that. There were a lot of shingles blown off roofs and siding was ripped down from some homes, and obviously lots of tree/power line damage, but I think wind gusts were in the 85-90 mph range where I was at the worst of it, from 9pm-midnight that night. The roof made creaking noises at times and the wind made some roaring sounds that definitely were hurricane force. If you add it all up, the immediate NYC metro had the worst impacts from the storm-the surge was highest in NY harbor and the back bays, the winds were likely strongest around here and out onto Long Island, and the damage overall most severe. I think the official surge height in Reynolds Channel was about 8 feet, storm tide overall was 10-11 feet due to it being just about at peak high tide when the surge was at its highest. It's hard to think of a way Sandy could have been worse, it truly was The Perfect Storm for this area. It made the 1991 storm look like a minor tempest in a teapot.

 

I walked on the boardwalk today and it looks and feels great. Hopefully it will fare a lot better should another Perfect Storm hit in the near future. We lucked out in a sense that the large buildings near the beach may have stopped the wave energy enough to prevent scenes like the NJ barrier islands and Rockaway. The surge was just as high here as there.

[Rjay]

Idk if a few gusts to 100 mph would automatically take off roofs. Maybe frequent gusts to 100 but prob not occasional. Either way, the duration of the strong winds was crazy.

[bluewave]

A resident posted a video from the Park Place Condos in Long Beach.

This building is at the corner of Magnolia and Park just down the block from

the public library. 

 

[MJO812]

This storm felt like it happened yesterday. How fast a year passed by.

[jm1220]

Good article from the NY Times yesterday on my town's recovery and lack thereof in some cases.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/garden/dark-water-a-year-after-hurricane-sandy.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0

[bluewave]

Published on Sep 26, 2013

These visualizations show how the NCAR-based Advanced Hurricane WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting Model) has depicted various aspects of Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy unfolding over four days (96 hours) in October 2012, from 1200 GMT / 8:00 am EDT 10/26/12 to 1200 GMT / 8:00 am EDT 10/30/12.

The model simulations were updated every second. In these videos, each frame is separated by 30 minutes of model time. 

Each segment in this compilation includes a full-frame visualization, followed by a zoomed-in version of the same sequence that shows the highest-resolution results (500 meters between points). 

All segments include vectors that show horizontal wind speed and direction at 1000 meters (about 3300 feet) above mean sea level. The length and color of the wind vectors correspond to wind speed (legend not shown). Longer vectors denote stronger winds.

Each segment is also available as a separate video in this Playlist.

--Simulation 1: (00:32--01:44)
Temperature of the atmosphere at cloud-top height, overlaid with 1000-meter horizontal wind vectors. Shading of clouds corresponds to cloud-top temperature in degrees C (legend at upper left). Higher cloud tops are generally colder. 

--Simulation 2 (01:44--02:57)
Maximum simulated radar reflectivity, overlaid with 1000-meter horizontal wind vectors. Colors indicate the reflectivity (in units dBZ) that a network of radars would observe if located across the ocean and nearby land. Warmer colors (higher dBZ) generally indicate more intense precipitation. . 

--Simulation 3 (02:58--04:12)
Potential temperature at 1000 meters above mean sea level, overlaid with 1000-meter horizontal wind vectors. Potential temperature is the temperature that a parcel of air would achieve if it were raised or lowered from a given pressure height to the 1000-millibar pressure height. Values are shown in degrees Celsius (legend at upper left). 

--Simulation 4 (04:12--05:26)
Wind speed at 1000 meters above mean sea level, overlaid with 1000-meter horizontal wind vectors. Color field denotes wind speed in meters per second (1 m/s = 2.24 mph).

--Simulation 5 (05:27--06:20)
Trajectories of air parcels, overlaid with 1000-meter horizontal wind vectors. Each strand shows the path taken by an air parcel over time, starting at the 1000-meter level. The model tracks new air parcels from the 1000-meter level as if the parcels were "seeded" every four hours, but no cloud seeding has occurred (the term refers to instructions given to the model to track a new parcel). Colors indicate potential temperature in Kelvins (legend at upper left; 273 K = 0°C = 32°F). This is the temperature each parcel would achieve if it were raised or lowered from a given pressure level height to the 1000-millibar height. When moisture in a rising air mass condenses to form clouds and precipitation, the heat added to the atmosphere through condensation can cause the potential temperature of an air parcel to increase. 

ABOUT THE COMPUTER MODELING

Researchers began with observations collected at the beginning of the four-day period. They started, or initialized, the AHW model with those data. The model itself, which captures the atmospheric physics associated with hurricanes, then predicted Sandy's behavior over the following four days. The resulting "hindcast" (a forecast conducted after the fact) closely matches the actual behavior of the hurricane/superstorm.

The modeling was performed using the Blue Waters Cray XE6 supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). 

The simulation and resulting visualizations are among the most detailed ever conducted for a particular hurricane, with conditions tracked every 500 meters (about 1,600 feet) horizontally. Since the model includes 150 vertical layers, this means that weather conditions were calculated at more than four billion points for each second in the 96-hour simulation. 

Related story: http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/opinio...

CREDITS

Science: Mel Shapiro and Thomas Galarneau, NCAR

Visualization: Alan Norton, NCAR, using VAPOR (Visualization and Analysis Platform for Ocean, Atmosphere, and Solar Researchers:http://www.vapor.ucar.edu/)

Simulation: Mark Straka, NCSA, and Peter Johnsen, Cray Inc.

Postproduction: Perry Domingo, NCAR

Category