Walking around Hoboken after returning from summer break, I took in some of the city’s classics. The smell of my favorite pizza wafting through the streets. The sound of school kids running through Church Square Park. And, of course, the flooding in the streets after a quick rain. Flooding is such an integral part of the Hoboken experience that the tenants in 8th and Madison aren’t even alarmed at the gallons of water that bubbles out of the grates and fills the sidewalks after a short rainfall. Instead, the Madison building tenants are used to this phenomenon and revel in their unexpected waterfront property.
No matter how common the flooding is, it is still alarming for Hobokenites who have stock in the area long-term.
This past July, Hoboken had the worst storm it had seen in years, with an inch of rainfall in the first 15 minutes. The storm was strongest during high tide, exacerbating the flood potential. Occurrences like this are particularly concerning for a community that was devastated by 10 feet of flooding in Hurricane Sandy.
Following the hurricane, Stevens’ Davidson Laboratory was integral in helping to cope with the disaster. The lab created street-by-street flood forecasting maps for New York City and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. They also built large warning systems for transit officers in Hoboken and beyond.
Despite the huge aid that Stevens research provided for the City of Hoboken, many residents are skeptical that the city will survive in the future. Though Hurricane Sandy was an anomaly at the time, these threats are increasingly common in a changing climate.
Luckily, Hoboken has a plan to quell some of the floodings. And it’s a good one, based on nearly 500 years of tests in the Netherlands. Even though the Netherlands is located largely below sea level, they rarely see the devastating floods that rage in the United States.
Their technique is tried and true, based on a simple principle: leave “room for the river.” Sometimes to keep high priority areas dry, it is necessary to designate other areas that will get wet. In practice, the Dutch have built huge man-made dams that prevent storm surges in residential areas. And they double as parking garages.
The unique flooding dilemma in Hoboken is based on an antiquated combined sewer system. According to the North Hudson Sewerage Authority, stormwater and wastewater (sewage) drain through the same pipes. In the event of rain, the sewer system becomes overwhelmed, leading to street flooding and combined sewer overflows into the Hudson River.
Perhaps it is no surprise that in our own flooding crisis, the City of Hoboken turned to the Dutch model for assistance. In 2017, there was an international call for innovative solutions. The winner was the Rebuild by Design Project, a flood resiliency plan that received a $230 million grant from the New Jersey Department of Housing and Urban Development. The City of Hoboken has since promised an additional $140 million to flood management.
The project, according to Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, is a “comprehensive water management strategy […] with four parts: Resist, Delay, Store, Discharge.”
Resist the water, delay its release, store it, and wait to discharge it until it can do the least damage.
Rebuild by Design calls for flood structures and stormwater control systems that interrupt the areas most vulnerable to flooding in Hoboken. The water is then stored elsewhere until the flood has subsided. The areas along the north end of Hoboken (near Weehawken) and along the far south (towards Jersey City) have the lowest elevations and are thus susceptible to act as funnels for water. These are the areas most targeted by the plan.
“This alignment will help protect our city and support our economic goals,” said Mayor Bhalla regarding the project. “We believe that Hoboken can truly become a national model for innovatively dealing with the impacts of global climate change.”
Construction for the first leg of the project, the Northwest Resiliency Park, is alleged to begin in September. The Hoboken website describes it as the city’s “largest park above ground green infrastructure and a flood detention system underground.” It will have the capacity to hold two million gallons of rainfall and will feature a lawn, skating rink, athletic fields, and more.
Even though our campus is not as susceptible to flooding, the Stevens community remains committed to the flood resiliency of Hoboken.
The Davidson Laboratory at Stevens has a number of current projects that will benefit the community at large. Some of these are infrastructure design plans — gated sea barriers, architecture to withstand hurricane winds, and rooftop gardens that recycle rainfall.
In addition, the lab has partnered with Facebook to launch a city-wide citizen science project. They invite townspeople to post images and videos of flooding to the “Davidson Lab” page. They utilize these images in conjunction with their in-house forecasting models to create real-time updates. Ideally, this information will help to identify vulnerable areas and prevent future disasters.
Muhammad Hajj, the Director of Davidson lab, assures the public that “the university will continue to serve communities and the government, helping in the preparation for sudden extreme-weather events.” These many efforts seem to be comforting the city, where many people have businesses and property at stake in the face of flooding. Some waterfront cities around the world are looking to Hoboken’s lead on the matter. Still, some people are apprehensive that anything will help the city at all. The fact that Hoboken is profiled on the PBS special Sinking Cities is not an optimistic indicator. However, the problem is getting solved in all the right ways: science, legislation, and lots of money. There is hope in these changes, but we are not out of the water yet.
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