The severe coastal storm risk to the New York area, fully realized by the onset of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, has prompted the introduction of an over $50 billion plan by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to protect the New York and New Jersey region’s tributaries and coastline.

The plan is “conceptual” and “preliminary”, but its massive and wide-reaching implications mean that no person should be caught unaware.

It was the outcome of the NY & NJ Harbor Tributaries Study, or HATS, that assessed the risk of the region to intense, 100, 200 and 500-year storms (storms thought to only occur once in each respective time period) and offered some solutions. HATS was a part of the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013, signed into law by president Obama in 2013.

The main, tentatively selected plan out of five is called Alternative 3B.

It would involve the construction and operation of many large-scale primary features. Massive church gate structures would be built on the Arthur Kill and at the Kill Van Kull that protect the inland of New Jersey at the southern and top tips of Staten Island. Along the shoreline in South Brooklyn, near Jamaica Bay, will be multiple surge gates, with three more smaller surge gates on some creeks near Red Hook, near Newtown and one in Flushing. Lower Manhattan, Jersey and East Harlem will receive a blend of elevated promenades, levees, deployable flood barriers and underwater floodwalls.

Other plans, like Plan 2, would see a gigantic wall with a storm surge gate built from New Jersey to Rockaway Point. The plans were drawn up to protect the region, while trying to maintain waterfront activity.

Construction isn’t set to begin until 2030, and residents are encouraged to inform the project and raise issues. However, how exactly will the agencies involved plan on going about connecting with the public?

With an extensive environmental justice and social vulnerability page, it would seem the study has taken into account any adverse effects the Alternative 3B plan could have on any communities that would be disproportionally vulnerable. But what are they actually doing to include memebers of these communities? Will the planners be speaking to them directly? What effects might the plan have on such communities?

How do these communities feel about the plan– do they even know about it yet?

I will reach out to community boards covering these areas, most notably where surge gates will be erected, as well as to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on their plan.

Also, might be too off beat, but with such a long-term plan attempted by an arm of the executive branch, will an administration change in the White House leave the plan unfinished?