New York Will Get Very Wet

Back in October, Mayor Bill de Blasio got the federal government to agree to redraw the city’s flood maps, which could save untold millions of dollars in insurance premiums for co-ops and condos located in low-lying coastal areas.

Now the Regional Plan Association, an organization that examines economic health, infrastructure, and sustainability, has come out with a new report that throws cold water – a lot of cold water – on the mayor’s idea that current flood maps are overly pessimistic, the Atlantic’s City Lab reports. The report suggests that sea levels could rise by as much as one foot by 2050, and possibly much earlier, which would affect the Rockaways, Jamaica Bay, parts of Coney Island and the eastern shore of Staten Island.

The six-foot rise in sea levels predicted by the turn of the century could mean permanent flooding in Harlem, Battery Park City, Hudson Yards, Chelsea, the Lower East Side, and East Village. La Guardia Airport would be submerged.

The report concludes: “We are past the point where sea level rise can be ignored in the hope that future technology will provide an easy solution."