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Extreme storm surges and waves and vulnerability of coastal bridges in New York City metropolitan region: an assessment based on Hurricane Sandy

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Abstract

Hurricane Sandy struck the New York metropolitan area in October 2012, becoming the second-costliest cyclone in the nation since 1900, and it serves as a valuable basis for investigating future extreme hurricane events in the area. This paper presents a hindcast study of storm surges and waves along the coast of the Mid-Atlantic Bight region during Hurricane Sandy using the FVCOM-SWAVE system, and its simulation results match observed data at a number of stations along the coastline. Then, as potential future scenarios, surges and waves in this region are predicted in synthetic hurricanes based on Hurricane Sandy’s parameters in association with sea-level rise in 50 and 100 years as well as with eight paths perturbed from that of Sandy. The prediction indicates that such surges and waves exhibit complex behaviors, and they can be much stronger than those during Hurricane Sandy. Finally, an assessment of hydraulic vulnerability is made for all coastal bridges in the New Jersey and New York region. It shows that hydrodynamic load and scour depth at some bridges may be worse in certain scenarios than those during Superstorm Sandy, while the probability of structural failure is small for the majority of them.

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Acknowledgements

This work is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (CMMI# 1334551). Partial support also comes from the UTRC program and, for K. Qu, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (# 51809021) and the Hunan Science and Technology Plan Program (# 2019RS1049). Support for I. Chiodi and Y. Imam comes from the GSTEM summer program at NYU. The authors are grateful to Dr. E. Hoomaan, Mr. N. Najibi, and Mr. C. Bisignano, for their help on data collection, and Dr. S. Kameshwar, for his clarification on a formula used in this paper. The authors thank Drs. C.S. Chen and Y.F. Sun for their input on FVCOM.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Hydraulic Engineering, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha, 410114, China

    K. Qu

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, City College of New York, CUNY, 138th Street and Convent Avenue, New York, NY, 10031, USA

    K. Qu, H. S. Tang, A. Agrawal & S. Gurung

  3. Boston Consulting Group, New York, NY, 10001, USA

    W. Yao

  4. Department of Construction Management and Civil Engineering Technology, New York City College of Technology, CUNY, Brooklyn, NY, 11201, USA

    G. Shields

  5. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA

    S. I. Chien

  6. North Cross School, Roanoke, VA, 24018, USA

    Y. Imam

  7. Friends Seminary, New York, NY, 10003, USA

    I. Chiodi

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Appendices

Appendix A: Measured and blended wind fields at wind stations

See Figs. 26, 27, and 28.

Fig. 26
figure 26

Comparison in the speed of the observed and the blended wind fields

Full size image
Fig. 27
figure 27

Comparison in the direction of the observed and the blended wind fields

Full size image
Fig. 28
figure 28

Comparison in the pressure of the observed and the blended wind fields

Full size image

Appendix B: Simulated and measured water surface elevation and wave during Hurricane Sandy

See Figs. 29 and 30.

Fig. 29
figure 29figure 29

Comparison of computed and observed water surface elevation

Full size image
Fig. 30
figure 30figure 30

Comparison in significant wave height and peak wave period obtained with simulation and observation

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Appendix C: Bridge parameters

Bridge ID

Name/Location

Zb (m)

Hb (m)

D (m)

W (m)

NJ-P000000

Turnpike Connector Bridge

− 7.09

49.43

7.11

11.83

NJ-3000002

Burlington Bristol Bridge

− 7.79

50.05

4.2

8.07

NJ-4500010

Ben Franklin Bridge

− 8.02

48.23

10.92

17.25

NJ-4500003

Walt Whitman Bridge

− 10.67

57.25

7.17

11.03

NJ-4500001

Commodore Barry Bridge

− 6.38

63.73

8.69

10.29

NJ-310001

Ocean City-Longport Bridge

− 2.62

23.02

2.46

7.05

NJ-0115150

Brigantine Bridge

− 2.00

20.79

1.77

6.24

NJ-1506006

Barnegat Bay Bridge

− 2.54

11.79

10.03

10.03

NJ-1508150

Mathis Bridge

− 2.01

10.96

2

2

NJ-1300S32

Shrewsbury River Bridge

− 3.70

10.27

5.3

6.7

NJ-W115360

NJ TPK Hackensack River Bridge

− 5.14

21.27

11.29

11.29

NJ-N002010

Newark Bay Bridge

− 3.32

45.24

5.9

7.69

NY-5521217/NY-5521218

Verrazano Narrows (Upper and Lower)

− 15.26

85.32

16

23.99

NY-2231450

Gerritsen Inlet Bridge

− 2.26

13.74

1.84

8.85

NY-2231479

Mill Basin Bridge

− 4.00

15.35

6.84

6.84

NY-5521239

Crossbay Vets Memorial Bridge

− 3.32

20.17

3.08

3.08

NY-2240499

Crossbay Blvd North Channel

− 2.90

11.59

1.26

1.26

NY-5200050

Atlantic Beach Bridge

− 3.23

11.43

5.76

5.76

NY-3300272

Long Beach Road and Barnum Isld Creek

− 2.00

4.98

0

NA

NY-1059129

Meadowbrook State Parkway Bridge

− 3.47

10.33

4.74

4.74

NY-1059159

False Channel on Meadowbrook State Pkwy

− 3.92

7.99

1.24

1.24

NY-1058509

Goose Creek Bridge

− 3.04

8.20

1.39

1.39

NY-3300770

Narrow Bay Bridge

− 2.25

7.81

5.92

5.92

NY-5516340

Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge

− 4.45

28.71

2.76

8.64

NY-5521257

Henry Hudson Bridge

− 5.03

49.05

0

NA

NY-5522507

George Washington Bridge

− 11.47

76.91

19

28.67

NY-5521209

Tri-borough Harlem River Lift Bridge

− 16.28

58.02

9.43

14.69

NY-2240660

Rikers Island Bridge

− 4.96

21.57

2.14

5.31

NY-1066510

BE Service Rd Westchester Creek Bridge

− 3.96

10.14

2.39

3.85

NY-5521229

Bronx Whitestone Bridge

− 7.51

49.59

6.43

10.08

  1. Zb is the bed elevation, Hb is the bridge clearance, D is the pier diameter, and W is its width

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Qu, K., Yao, W., Tang, H.S. et al. Extreme storm surges and waves and vulnerability of coastal bridges in New York City metropolitan region: an assessment based on Hurricane Sandy. Nat Hazards 105, 2697–2734 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-020-04420-y

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