Flooding in the Battery Park Underpass
/ Photographer Lewis Karpel
BATTERY PARK, NEW YORK CITY -- An over 13- foot storm surge caused flooding not only in Battery Park, but across much of New York City. Additionally, what was initially deemed Hurricane, now Superstorm Sandy, caused power outages across much of the Northeast.
Early Tuesday morning, looking across the Hudson River at the Statue of Liberty standing tall and strong, one couldn’t help but think of how she represents the attitude of most New Yorkers post-Sandy.
Walking around Battery Park, which is located at the southern-most end of Manhattan, we were able to find quite a few things that were not standing tall in the wake of Sandy’s storm-surge wrath. For example, a large tree fell across the walk way running right next to the Hudson, blocking the path. Locals like Roark Dunn tell me this was a remarkably powerful storm, something they had never seen before.
“For the first 24 hours, they were telling us to be alert. I thought it was much to do about nothing," he said. "I really did not think the storm surge would rise as high as it did.”
But rise, it certainly did. Throughout Battery Park, cyclists like Roark were dodging debris on their journey through. Looking around it begged comparison to a recent major storm to affect the northeast.
“In terms of the impact on this neighborhood, it was significantly worse than Irene, because the water didn’t breach for Irene," Roark says. "But here, last night at around 8 pm, the East River was in the Financial District.”
Another cyclist passing through, Simon Jerome, a student at Columbia, gave me the sense that many New Yorkers are coming to terms with the potentially lengthy cleanup process that lies ahead.
“From living here 3 years, I’ve learned that New Yorkers are extremely resilient. They’re going to get through this,” he said.
