[Newsbot]

Title: Hurricane barriers floated to keep sea out of New York City
Category: Tech
Posted By: Hyack
Date: 2009-05-30 20:27:22

[GreenTiger]

Get used to it global warming has arrived.

[Strutz]

As I started to read this article I had a vision of that scene from the movie "The Day after Tomorrow" when the gigantic wave hit Manhattan. Very frightening prospect for such a high density area. I'm not sure that these barriers will be enough to protect NYC should the hurricane season be bad this year. It's also tremendously expensive.

[xerxes]

I would imagine it would be less exspensive than the effects of a hurricane though.

[Thanos]

It's probably only lack of imagination and politics that would prevent such a project from moving forward. The British, Italians, and Dutch have been doing these engineering projects for decades for flood control and what they've already built appears to mostly work very effectively. But we're in stagnant ol' North America after all, where nowadays we prefer to whine about all the reasons we can't do something rather than work towards all the reasons we can or should. Our get-up-and-go attitude that once shaped the entire world probably got shipped overseas along with all our good paying jobs.

[Scape]

New York was once New Amsterdam. Perhaps it will be again.

[RoyalHighlander]

They are allready using a variation of that in the Themes river in London as the sea level is ring there and Venice is in BIG trouble too now,, certain areas are flooded all the time.. areas that only a few years ago were way above the water line

[Brenda]

Call the Dutch. Get 'r done.

[Hyack]

I was under the impression that aside from the dykes both the Netherlands and Britain have Tidal barriers to stop extreme high tides or surges pushing up the Thames, and the Dutch into the Zuiderzee. I don't see how this would be of any use to New York city as the whole place is basically a bunch of islands. Best bet would be to build a dyke around the whole area, then pray.....really hard.

[martin14]

Hyack Hyack:

I was under the impression that aside from the dykes both the Netherlands and Britain have Tidal barriers to stop extreme high tides or surges pushing up the Thames, and the Dutch into the Zuiderzee. I don't see how this would be of any use to New York city as the whole place is basically a bunch of islands. Best bet would be to build a dyke around the whole area, then pray.....really hard.

There was a big flood in '53. After that, the whole
south of Holland was dammed, locked and seawalled up to the nines.

The Zuiderzee was changed from a salt to a fresh water lake, and land reclaimed
inside the area.


And you're right Hyack, this system wouldn't help NYC at all,\
just a nice big ring dike around the city.. leave room for expansion
and raising heights

[Brenda]

They need something like the Deltawerken... More than one. Or just accept the fact they are close to or below sea-level and let nature take its course. You can't stop nature forever, although ya can try!

The Deltawerken in Zeeland are constructed inbetween some islands too.

[Chumley]

What about firearms? Anyone think of using those?

[Hyack]

Brenda Brenda:

They need something like the Deltawerken... More than one. Or just accept the fact they are close to or below sea-level and let nature take its course. You can't stop nature forever, although ya can try!

Y'all ever hear of a place in Louisiana called New Orleans..... ...... great place to build a city folks, great planning.....

[martin14]

Brenda Brenda:

They need something like the Deltawerken... More than one. Or just accept the fact they are close to or below sea-level and let nature take its course. You can't stop nature forever, although ya can try!

The Deltawerken in Zeeland are constructed inbetween some islands too.

Hey B, a question.

The Deltawerk in Holland really changed the environment around the islands
in the south, and of course the Zuiderzee in the north.

Thankfully there werent many environutters around in those days to stop
the project, though I wonder if it could be done today.

Do you think it could ?




Looking at Long Island, you could run a big sea wall from the south across
over to New Jersey, then from the tip of Long Island back to the mainland
over on the north side.. really, most people think about Manhatten first.
But the impact on the environment over there would really be something else..

[Brenda]

The Deltawerken wasn't the reason the Zuiderzee turned into a lake. That was the Afsluitdijk between Noord-Holland and Friesland. All the Deltawerken does, is make sure a tragedy like the floods of 53 don't happen again. Half of the Netherlands is below sealevel. They are constantly making dykes higher, to make sure it doesn't flood. There are many storms in Fall and Winter, and if there were no dunes, dykes, or Deltawerken, half of the Netherlands would not have existed.

There are still mussels and oysters grown in the Haringvliet (or however you call that in English LOL), people are still making a living.

The Deltawerking is not closing off the rivers from the sea, or the sea from the rivers. Usually, it is just flowing as it should be, just when a huge storm hits the coast, they close it, so flooding is not gonna happen again. The don't close it that often either. Last time I heard of it was a storm with a windforce of 10 or 11, which is close to hurricane.