New York's Post-Sandy Resilience Plans Have Lost Momentum

Five years after Superstorn Sandy, the splashy and widely referenced "The Big U" plan is still "just lines on paper" according to an article by Robert Lewis.

You probably remember the Big U—"a 10-mile U-shaped barrier from 57th Street on the west side, down the battery and up the east side to 42nd Street," writes Lewis. "It was supposed to feature public art space and stunning new parkland."

A first phase of the Big U, the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project, has $335 in funding from the federal government, but the "groundbreaking has been delayed by at least 18 months, and already some of the amenities promised to the community have been removed to cut costs."

According to Lewis, the Big U is not the only project that emerged in the days and months following Superstorm Sandy that seems to have sputtered out of political favor. In fact, the assessment looks a lot like the city of New York and the surrounding region is no more prepared for an extreme weather even than it was when Superstorm Sandy slammed ashore exactly five years ago today. That dire assessment about the overall state of resilience in New York, as well as the rest of the country, is echoed by another article by the Associated Press, if you're looking for more.