The City of New York has been investing heavily in flood and stormwater mitigation to make the City more resilient. New York City recently installed flood barriers along the East River in lower Manhattan to protect New Yorkers from rising sea levels and coastal storm surges. In the Two Bridges neighborhood (located near the footings of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges), the City installed a combination of flip-up barriers and floodwalls to protect the neighborhood from a 100-year storm surge. This was done while also maintaining waterfront access and visibility.
Extending from the Brooklyn Bridge to Montgomery Street, this project will reduce the risk of flooding for thousands of residents. The barriers are permanent structures but will be unnoticed by the public until they are flipped up before a storm. Care was taken to integrate them into a holistic design that minimizes conflict with subsurface infrastructure and allows for public space amenities such as open-air seating, fitness equipment, and athletic courts. This is being in done in conjunction with the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project, which runs from Montgomery Street to East 25th Street.
By the end of 2026, the City expects to have more than three miles of Manhattan’s eastern coastline fortified. Additionally, similar work is being done at the Battery on Manhattan’s southern point. The outer boroughs are not being neglected either. Later this year, the City anticipates breaking ground for flood mitigation projects in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood. Similar work is also expected for parts of Queens and Staten Island.
For more information on the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project be sure to check out the project website. Don’t forget to click the link for a short video of the flip-up flood gates in action!
The City has also invested nearly $390 million in critical infrastructure upgrades to alleviate chronic flooding due to stormwater in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The sewer system there on Knickerbocker Avenue dates to the early 1900s and is prone to stormwater overflows. Engineers and planners from the NYC Department of Environmental Protection conducted a drainage analysis and determined that upsizing the sewer system would help alleviate flooding in the area.
The sewer system will be upsized from the current 7.5-foot diameter pipes to new 10-by-9-foot box sewers, improving capacity by more than 850%! This expansion will allow the sewer to handle almost 2 billion gallons per day, a dramatic increase from the previous 226 million gallons per day that the old infrastructure could handle. This project will also upgrade catch basins to more modern designs to help prevent trash and debris from creating clogs and ensuring that water flows more efficiently. It will also upgrade existing drinking water infrastructure.
Prior to this project, the City also constructed 400 rain gardens, installed green infrastructure in neighborhood parks and playgrounds, installed slotted manhole covers on sidewalks to help drainage and placed FloodNet sensors at known problem intersections to provide real-time data on flooding. While more work certainly needs to be done, New York City is heavily committed to ensuring a resilient future for everyone who lives, works, and visits the Big Apple.