10 Years After Sandy: Leading the Conversation on Resilience

Ten years ago tomorrow, a once-in-a-generation weather event named Superstorm Sandy made landfall in New York and New Jersey and completely changed the way one of the largest economic engines in the world thought about public infrastructure.

As an organization that has long prided itself on its ability to serve its clients and adapt to their needs, the days, weeks and months following Sandy marked a period of dramatic transformation for STV’s design and construction management teams. With more than $65 billion in damage levied throughout the New York Metropolitan Region, several of our clients turned to STV to help get vital transit systems, and crucial social infrastructure facilities reopened and functional as quickly as possible.

But following those initial requests there was a crucial shift in focus and philosophy. While it was important to get our infrastructure back into a state of good repair, the bigger question we wanted to help our clients answer was: “how do we prevent this from happening again?”

To that end, STV is proud to be a leading contributor in creating infrastructure that is more resilient sustainable in the face of increasingly extreme weather and global climate change. Our commitment to social responsibility is part of our DNA and is directed by a team of outside-the-box thinkers, many of whom are guiding the national conversation on resilience, sharing their expertise within the organization and with other experts representing the AEC industry and beyond.

With resilience capacity building now a permanent part of the nation’s infrastructure planning, here are some of the highlights that demonstrate how STV was able to build this expertise and make a meaningful contribution to our community.

Protecting the Nation’s Busiest Transit Systems

Serving more than 8 million people a day, MTA New York City Transit’s (NYC Transit) subway and bus system is one of the largest public transportation networks in the world. The system was ravaged by Sandy, which caused critical damage to stations, power systems, maintenance facilities, tunnels and more.

STV has been a long-standing partner with NYC Transit, and the entire MTA system (including Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad commuter rail lines) for decades. Following Sandy, one of the key initiatives the firm’s transit team supported was a competitive grant writing project to secure part of a $3 billion FTA-sponsored Recovery and Resilience Grant that would fund resilience and hardening improvements at stations, yards, substations, tunnel portals and other pieces of transit infrastructure.

We also provided a full array of engineering design services for NYC Transit facilities that were hit hardest by Sandy. During Sandy, Coney Island Yard Complex – one of the largest maintenance shops in the world – experienced widespread flooding and debilitating damage to track infrastructure, switches and critical maintenance shop buildings. STV initially prepared a feasibility study that evaluated various flood, drainage and power mitigation alternatives. From there, our team designed debris barriers around bridges crossing Coney Island Creek that also carry active train lines across the yard.

In a project that targeted some of the most vulnerable elements of NYC Transit’s system, we performed design services providing long-term flood mitigation at 17 Fan Plants and Adjacent Tunnels at various locations throughout the city. Along NYC Transit’s Rockaway Line in Queens – another coastal area that was severely damaged by Sandy – STV led a feasibility study of flood mitigation alternatives for a stretch between the Howard Beach Station and Hammels Wye. Additionally, our team designed a full perimeter protection system for the Hammels Wye Facility, which houses a power substation, signal tower, and other important infrastructure that is crucial for the entire transit line’s operation. 

Across the Hudson River in New Jersey, STV leveraged its long-standing ties to the rehabilitation and restoration of the historic Hoboken Terminal & Yard Complex to prepare condition assessments and alternative analyses for resilience upgrades at this facility, which serves about 50,000 rail, bus and ferry riders every day. These assessments ultimately led to restoring the terminal’s main waiting room, and repairing its electrical, mechanical and plumbing systems, while also designing long-term flood measures, including permanent flood walls, the relocation of major equipment to higher elevations, and floodproofing electrical equipment where relocation was not feasible.

Improving Social Infrastructure

In addition to supporting our transit clients, Superstorm Sandy has led to various public agencies representing the region’s schools, housing and healthcare sectors to seek out long-term resilience improvements at buildings and facilities throughout New York and New Jersey.

For the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) – the largest public housing authority in North America – both STV’s design and construction and program management experts were tapped to create more resilient housing in the region. The storm’s tidal surge impacted about 10 percent of NYCHA’s developments throughout the city. STV has performed design or construction management services at more than 35 developments in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan with a focus on better protecting mechanical and electrical systems. Our firm also developed NYCHA’s Program Management Plan for superstorm recovery, documenting NYCHA’s progress in the first year after the storm and providing details for all future recovery work.

STV provided similar leading expertise for the New York City School Construction Authority (SCA) by preparing the Flood Emergency Operations Plan, a template that is now used by all consultants to incorporate flood resilient design features at SCA facilities. Additionally, STV performed a wide range of design and environmental services at several public schools throughout the city that were directly impacted by Sandy.

For more about our resilience design and construction and program management experience, visit stvinc.com.