Resiliency

Theme curated by: The Red Hook WaterStories Team

PortSide NewYork was honored with a "Champions of Change" award from the Obama White House and honors from the NYS Senate for our hurricane Sandy preparation and recovery work: we saved our historic ship from the storm, set up and ran a Sandy aid station, created a virtual aid station, ran 6 months of Sandy Survivor Meetings, and more. Since Sandy, PortSide has worked on Red Hook resiliency via being appointed to government committees, resiliency projects with artists and colleges programs, plus our own independent work. There's a list on our website at https://portsidenewyork.org/our-sandy-recovery.

RESILIENCY 101 below is a deep resource section with info on how to prepare for a flood (short and long term), an overview of resiliency plans for Red Hook including NYCHA's, maps that show Sandy flooding and damage to trees. The section includes historic and modern studies of the sewer system and maps that show what parts of Red Hook were once water-- all of which effects current flooding, and more!

What you urgently need to know is up top. The historical info can have contemporary relevance; e.g. maps of buried waterways can be helpful for showing waterways that come back to life during heavy rains. It's good to know if your home or car is near those spots.

You can download this one-page PDF flyer at link below. We have copied its words below so that you can easily click the hyperlinks to get to all Red Hook WaterStories content mentioned in the PDF. The jpeg version is for sharing on social media,…

Saba Mahmood's short flyer(pdf) is designed to guide residents of Red Hook (and others) in understanding their state of readiness in case of a flood. It is in English, Spanish, and Chinese, the main languages of the Red Hook neighborhood. Saba…

Google Translation: Chinese(中文), Spanish(Español) For our larger collection of resiliency info go here.For Jim McMahon's Red Hook Sandy flood map go here. Please take our short survey about flood prepContact PortSide NewYork…

Storm Preparedness For Small Business, an excellent event organized bySBIDCtook place on 9/17/13. The tips are also useful for home owners and non-profits, and much of it also applies for areas besides Red Hook. SBIDC set up this day-long program…

Tide + surge + wind over water (fetch) = what you need to know.Tide Table locations: Gowanus Bay (the water south of Red Hook), The Battery in Manhattan is about a 20 minute difference from Atlantic BasinTo calculate the risk of flooding at a…

click here for detailed weather report The one above includes an AQI (Air Quality Index). Simpler version is here: It is important to understand weather to understand how sudden rain increases flooding risks, how high tide affects…

Updates since close of comment period 11/15/23 press release from office of Congressman Dan Goldman:  In short: the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) invoked the agency’s role as formal non-federal sponsor of…

This map was researched, created and generously shared with the Red Hook community by Red Hook resident Jim McMahon who wanted to help his neighbors recover from Hurricane Sandy and prepare for future floods. Jim donated the map for fundraisers,…

Street FloodingReport Street flooding to NYC by calling 311 or by going to their 311 website. There is a detailed questionaire to report flooding on the the website, that allows you to submit images and other attachments.Sewer BackupsNew York City…

Hurricane Sandy hit Brooklyn around 8pm on October 29, 2012. which caused devastating flooding in Red Hook. The following are stories, oral accounts and images relating to the superstorm and its aftermath.1)PortSide NewYork Sandy Story: Saving MARY…

Hurricane Sandy hit Brooklyn around 8pm on October 29, 2012. which caused devastating flooding in Red Hook. The following 32 interviews are part of a project "Sandy: Tell Your Story"recorded by Emergency Management Methodology Partners (EMMP) in…

Zoltán Glück was a graduate student when Sandy hit, and he worked with Occupy Sandy doing recovery work in Red Hook, Brooklyn.Occupy Sandy, an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement, was a major and innovative force for Sandy recovery in New…

April 21, 2013 This is PortSide NewYork's hurricane Sandy story. Apersonal report by Carolina Salguero, Director of PortSide, speaking as Shipkeeper of the MARY A. WHALEN.This installment covers PortSide's time in port preparing for Sandy, riding…

Post hurricane Sandy, Red Hook continues to be intensely studied by the city, state and federal government as well as by many academics. Jump to aquick overview of multiple government-funded plans and how they interrelate (or don't).

You've heard of watersheds, this project is about sewersheds. The sewer system impacts flooding in Red Hook both in terms of overflows coming up into the street from storm drains and backing up into buildings via their sewer lines. The…

The Goawnus Canal Storm Surge Barrier Study was presented to the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Mayor's Office of Recovery and Resiliency. The reportlooks at thefeasibility of future studies and actions the City and the Army…

2013 Sandy Flood saline impacted tree survey by Eymund Diegel for the NYC Parks DepartmentText on map:"Gowanus / Red Hook Flood Impacts: Post Sandy Flood Tree Leaf Out Percentages. Trees impacted by salt water ponding and salt water flooding. June…

Red Hook community members created an emergency plan to cover the 72 HOURS BEFORE AND AFTER an emergency called Ready Red Hook. This plan - for all emergencies, not just floods - was created in the aftermath of the Sandy Hurricane, in an effort to be…

History of the NY Rising committee and its resiliency plan for Red Hook: The NYS Governors Office for Storm Recovery (GOSR) created the NY Rising "Community Reconstruction Program" (CRP), an 8-month planning process that kicked off in September,…