NYC FLOODING DANGERS

Submitted by ub on

NYC officials project that nearly 800,000 residents could be living in flood zone that cover a quarter of the city's land by the year 2050. This dire prediction comes about as rising water levels and other effects of global warming occur.

They also say that of 90-degree days in NYC could triple to Birmingham, Alabama temperatures. Finally, approximately 8 percent of the city's coastline could be subject to flooding from high tides.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg plans to build levees and removable walls to protect New York City. These removable flood-walls would be erected in lower Manhattan, and levees, gates and other defenses would be built all over the city as part of a $20 billion plan proposed to protect NYC from storms and the effects of global warming.

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials have now released revisions to proposed new flood zone maps for NYC. Around 218,000 people and 35,000 buildings are in the current once-in-100-year flood zone, drawn in the 1980s. Their new projections double those staggering numbers.