While New Yorkers brace themselves for forthcoming Hurricane Sandy repairs on the L train tunnel, Lower Manhattan is expected to receive an additional $176 million in federal funding for a large-scale flood protection system that will eventually wrap from Montgomery Street on the Lower East Side, around the tip of the borough, and up through Battery Park City.
The details of the fortification plan have yet to be hashed out, but "deployable" flood walls—walls that rise into place along the shoreline in anticipation of storm swells—are under consideration, as are grassy berms that could double as new parkland on the Lower East Side waterfront.
The boost in funding comes more than three years after Hurricane Sandy ripped through NYC, doing the most damage across lower Manhattan, Staten Island and the Rockaway Peninsula.
A study released last winter by the NYC Panel on Climate Change predicted that sea levels could rise between 11 inches and 21 inches by the 2050s, and a whopping 22-50 inches by 2100.
This month's cash injection is part of a national Department of Housing and Urban Development contest called the National Disaster Resilience Competition. According to the NY Times, HUD identified 40 finalists last June—including NYC, New York State, New Jersey and Connecticut—to receive part of a $1 billion prize pool to clean up natural disaster sites and take preventative measures against future storms.
Federal officials told the paper that prizes will be officially announced later this month. Senator Chuck Schumer apparently made a big push for NYC to get the bulk of this relief funding, lobbying housing secretary Julian Castro at a downtown diner last week.
HUD could not immediately be reached for confirmation.
Mayor de Blasio announced $100 million in downtown flood protections last August, hoping the additional funding would tip the scales on NYC's chances in the HUD competition. The city's original ask was $500 million.
