Mantoloking, NJ. Aerial pictures of New Jersey’s coast, after superstorm Sandy devastated the area. Photo courtesy of: © Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines (PSDS) / WCU
Excerpts;
Three months after Superstorm Sandy ravaged coastal areas in much of the Northeast, Congress on Monday sent a $50.5 billion emergency relief measure for storm victims to President Barack Obama for his signature…
Experts Urge Caution As $50 Billion In Sandy Aid Passes House
The House of Representatives passed a bill this week to spend $50 billion to help states struck by Hurricane Sandy. Several billion dollars are pegged for projects to reduce risk of future storms, and this alarmes some scientists who studied what happens to structures built along coastlines…
On battered Jersey shore, Sandy victims struggle with costs of climate change, CSM
The Memory of Risks / Xynthia Superstorm- France
It is 4:00 am. Howling winds, whipping rains, infuriated seas, and eight meter high (26 feet) crashing waves, are muffling the desperate cries for help…4:00 am… Twenty nine human lives are being swept away, drowned in the March frigid and salty ocean waters. They were in their sleep, in their beds, in the comfort of their home…they did not understand, they could not react, most of them too old, too frail, or much too little to run for safety and climb on the rooftops, like most of the survivors did. That very night, hundreds of survivors were trapped for hours, trembling with fear and piercing cold, in agony, and battered by rain and incomprehension. Only lit by the full moon, in the darkest night of their life, all were waiting for the emergency crews and help to arrive.
These are horrifying facts, eventually, yet tragically surpassed by an intolerable truth, when, in 2010, Superstorm Xynthia swept through France with powerful winds of 160km/h 90 miles. The potentiality of such a disaster was well foreseen, and highly expected to occur. And it did, in France, one of the most developed and industrialized countries in the world, in the southwestern coastal towns of La Faute-sur-Mer and neighboring l’Aiguillon-sur-Mer..
