Sea Grant's Helen Cheng helps New York City communities better prepare for hurricanes

Sea Grant’s Helen Cheng helps New York City communities better prepare for hurricanes

September 27, 2017

Paul C. Focazio, New York Sea Grant

Five years post-Sandy, Helen Cheng says the superstorm “still looms in the memories of our stakeholders, but I’m looking forward to working with groups to help them prepare for coastal hazards and to be resilient for the next big storm.” Cheng is a coastal resilience specialist with New York Sea Grant and is hosting a series of New York City-based “Climate Forums” focused on hurricane preparedness. The forums are co-sponsored by New York Sea Grant and the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay.

The September 27, 2017 Climate Forum will be hosted at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island, Brooklyn, which itself was closed for seven months after late-October 2012’s Superstorm Sandy hit.

The topic is an ever-so timely one. Forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Sea Grant’s federal parent agency, announced revised predictions for the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season in early August, which runs June 1st to November 30th. The forecast included a higher likelihood of an above-normal season and thereby an increase in the predicted number of named storms and major hurricanes. Unfortunately, the forecast has held true, and several major storms have impacted the Caribbean and U.S. in August and September 2017.

For more, including a listen to Cheng’s Jamaica Bay-focused podcast series, visit www.nyseagrant.org/jamaicabay or www.srijb.org/jbpodcast.

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