New York Times: Hurricane [Sandy] Exposed Flaws in Protection of Tunnels
There was discussion in this forum about the Battery Tunnel which remains flooded nearly two weeks later. I am not sure how much of this discussion was deleted because the "search" function is not being very helpful but I recall that I argued that the people running the Tunnel should have done more in terms of disaster preparedness.
The tunnel’s general manager, Marc Mende, recounting what happened on the night of the storm, made it clear that he had no ability to block the angry rapids he saw heading for the Manhattan entrance.
. . .
“I couldn’t believe it — this tunnel never flooded before,” he said. “This tunnel didn’t even get puddles.”
Unlike a number of other tunnels around the world, the Brooklyn-Battery does not have even a basic system to block water at its entrances. No gates or plugs or other barriers. Nor do Manhattan’s other tunnels. Defenseless under the storm’s ravages, the Brooklyn-Battery instead served as a drain for Lower Manhattan, filling with nearly 100 million gallons of water."
. . .
“I’d guess now over the next few years, we’ll see more being done to identify critical facilities and protect them from extreme events,” said D. Wayne Klotz, past president of the American Society of Civil Engineers and a Houston water engineer. “If you think what happened is unacceptable — and I’d say it was — you have to do something. Because I can guarantee you this kind of storm will happen again.”
In interviews, several engineers said they were shocked that New York City had not done far more to safeguard its tunnels, especially the Brooklyn-Battery, the longest underwater tunnel in the United States, which has a notoriously low-lying entrance.
. . .
Mr. Klotz said: “Whoever owns that tunnel knows exactly what it would take to keep water out in case of a flood. and it’s not high tech. They just didn’t want to spend the money.”
[emphasis added]
Read the article and form your own opinion. Mine is unchanged. I believe the people who run the Tunnel were grossly negligent.
None of the previous discussion was deleted (and if it had been, there would have been a moderator note to indicate such).
By searching the original thread using: "Search This Thread / Advanced Search / Username: Landing Gear", one can retreive the subthread below, which is reproduced here for reference.
As the OP has now started a separate thread here, we will invite discussion to continue here so that the Sandy thread can remain focused on current updates.
/Moderator
Quote:
Originally Posted by Landing Gear
Battery Tunnel shut down at 2:00 PM. You would think for the ripoff $6.50 toll they could buy some pumps.
Holland Tunnel also shut.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hayden
This is an example of the tradeoff in engineering design. It's possible to design for a 50- or 100- or 200-year storm (i.e., storms that have a 2%, 1%, or 0.5% chance of happening in any given year), but costs increase significantly for what are rarer and rarer events. That's why typical storm drain infrastructure, including pumps, is designed for the 10-year, 24-hour storm--though the pumps now in the Battery Tunnel may have greater capacity. An October 2008 MTA report on climate change impacts identified potential flooding of this tunnel as an impact needing to be addressed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Landing Gear
Uh, no. This is an example of how motorists are consistently bled dry for tolls while the revenue therefrom is diverted to other uses. If the outrageous tolls were used for the BBT, this problem would not exist.
The Tunnel is a lifeline between Brooklyn and Manhattan (e.g. various hospitals, specialized police and fire units). Not having it available in an emergency is a disgrace. But there was money to rename it after Hugh Carey. I would sooner they sold the naming rights for a few million bucks, fix the pumps, lower the tolls and call it the Energizer Battery Tunnel.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nugget_Oz
It's a design problem with the BBT and the Holland Tunnel. They are built to the same standard as the Lincoln and the Midtown but that standard does not cater for the storm surge expected.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blumie
Uh, no. The tolls are not solely to raise revenue for tunnel maintenance, but also to discourage unnecessary driving into already-too-congested Manhattan and to encourage use of mass transit (the costs of which are kept artificially low by, among other things, high tolls at the bridges and tunnels).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Landing Gear
A government policy with which I disagree and clearly what is meant by "maintenance" is subject to intrepretation.
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Quote:
Mr. Klotz said: “Whoever owns that tunnel knows exactly what it would take to keep water out in case of a flood. and it’s not high tech. They just didn’t want to spend the money.”
How come Mr. Klotz knows so much about the tunnel except who owns it? BTW the tunnel is owned by the City of New York.
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How come Mr. Klotz knows so much about the tunnel except who owns it? BTW the tunnel is owned by the City of New York.
Completely irrelevant to his points. By the way, when I hire a civil engineer for a real estate project, I seek an engineering report not a title search.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Landing Gear
Completely irrelevant to his points.
I disagree. That quote discounted his others as knowing it's a municipally owned & maintained infrastructure may explain why the funding hasn't been committed. I doesn't seem an unreasonable expectation IMHO that if you're going to speak as an expert on a tunnel to be informed enough as to who owns & maintains, or fails to maintain, it.
As to why possible upgrades haven't been considered the article did note:
The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel had never closed for weather, even as a precaution, until Tropical Storm Irene last year.
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I disagree. That quote discounted his others as knowing it's a municipally owned & maintained infrastructure may explain why the funding hasn't been committed. I doesn't seem an unreasonable expectation IMHO that if you're going to speak as an expert on a tunnel to be informed enough as to who owns & maintains, or fails to maintain, it.
That's absurd. He's an engineer from Houston. He's perfectly capable of discussing technical issues regarding the tunnel. Period. You're trying to make this more political than it is.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ijgordon
That's absurd. He's an engineer from Houston. He's perfectly capable of discussing technical issues regarding the tunnel. Period. You're trying to make this more political than it is.
Seems to me questioning why improvements haven't been made is beyond discussing the technical issues of a municipally owned and (through the MTA) maintained tunnel. If he's an expert on tunnels, fine, but then he should be limiting his comments to that topic only instead of debating why public dollars weren't spent on upgrades which is a political issue.
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I disagree. That quote discounted his others as knowing it's a municipally owned & maintained infrastructure may explain why the funding hasn't been committed. I doesn't seem an unreasonable expectation IMHO that if you're going to speak as an expert on a tunnel to be informed enough as to who owns & maintains, or fails to maintain, it.
As to why possible upgrades haven't been considered the article did note:
The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel had never closed for weather, even as a precaution, until Tropical Storm Irene last year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ijgordon
That's absurd. He's an engineer from Houston. He's perfectly capable of discussing technical issues regarding the tunnel. Period. You're trying to make this more political than it is.
That would be correct, ijgordon.
As to tcook052, I would appreciate not having this thread shipped off to OMNI. I am a native and life-long New Yorker. My "skin" in this game is as someone who pays taxes here and uses the Tunnel more than 200 times a year (each time for a toll). Why would you care about this facility? How often do you use it?
As to the point of "municipally owned and maintained," that's not crystal clear to me given that the MTA is a New York State public benefit corporation. Maybe I too would use a locution like "whoever owns the tunnel" or "whoever maintains the tunnel." The engineer was not attending a deposition and in any case, he's not an expert of property law; he's a civil engineer!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Landing Gear
As to tcook052, I would appreciate not having this thread shipped off to OMNI. I am a native and life-long New Yorker. My "skin" in this game is as someone who pays taxes here and uses the Tunnel more than 200 times a year (each time for a toll). Why would you care about this facility? How often do you use it?
I must've missed the part that limited discussion on this topic only to New Yorkers, though trust the forum moderator will point that out to me if I've erred.
Quote:
As to the point of "municipally owned and maintained," that's not crystal clear to me given that the MTA is a New York State public benefit corporation. Maybe I too would use a locution like "whoever owns the tunnel" or "whoever maintains the tunnel." The engineer was not attending a deposition and in any case, he's not an expert of property law; he's a civil engineer!
Yes, a civil engineer who is commenting on more than engineering. Had said expert deflected when asked why improvements weren't undertaken as not being within his purview that would be one thing but he chose to go much further and lay blame which is IMHO not his call to make.
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How do you decide where to shift the blame from the designers of the tunnel to those who are running it today?
Sorry I missed this message.
I believe you change your operations in response to science and technology. For example, when my house was built the smoke detector had not yet been invented. But now, I install and maintain them.
Following Katrina, a lot of people were asking "what it?" type questions. Apparently those people were not running the Battery Tunnel.
I must've missed the part that limited discussion on this topic only to New Yorkers, though trust the forum moderator will point that out to me if I've erred.
No, the discussion is definitely open to all according to FT rules and I never said it was not. What I did, however do was ask why you care about how the Battery Tunnel is operated and maintained.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Landing Gear
No, the discussion is definitely open to all according to FT rules and I never said it was not. What I did, however do was ask why you care about how the Battery Tunnel is operated and maintained.
Just taking exception with what I felt were matters beyond the quoted engineer's expertise which were cited for "emphasis added".
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Yes, a civil engineer who is commenting on more than engineering. Had said expert deflected when asked why improvements weren't undertaken as not being within his purview that would be one thing but he chose to go much further and lay blame which is IMHO not his call to make.
Well I would think that even civil engineers are privy to how much their technical recommendations cost. But his statements/points would be the same if he was talking about a structure owned by a private, for-profit corporation. "Well, they didn't want to spend the money." Still valid.
Following Katrina, a lot of people were asking "what it?" type questions. Apparently those people were not running the Battery Tunnel.
Following Katrina, I suppose then, that you, along with lots of other people whose voices were never heard, were arguing that the design assumptions of the Battery Tunnel be revisited?
