For those interested in some of the mechanics for why Sandy wound up being such a (comparatively) violent storm and some suggestions as to how likely it is to happen in the future…
How the Frankenstorm came to life
Sandy holds lessons for forecasters
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/346130/title/How_the_Frankenstorm_came_to_life
As I talk about earlier, there really isn’t that much special or shocking about the storm, just its path. Storms like Sandy form all the time, but few make it so far north along the east coast, thus the part of the country that got whacked isn’t used to being targeted. To me the most interesting question (to which I feel certain I know the answer: “well, of course”) is how likely are people to repeat the exact same mistake by rebuilding in the exact same location. Much like the levees along the Mississippi have caused the bed of the river to rise above the lands to either side (partly due to sedimentation of the river itself and partly due to subsidence of the land to either side), when the inevitable happens the disaster will be entirely man made no matter how ‘natural’ the storm was that triggered the final collapse. Holland, which has a long history of dealing with strong ocean storms and land below sea level, realized that you must give rivers a place to flood and rebuilt their levees a half mile (or more) away from the river. For 99% (or more) of the time it is beautiful parkland, but when the storm rages it gets flooded, but it is no ‘disaster’ because there isn’t anything that gets destroyed (though I am sure there needs to be some cleaning once the waters have receded). However, here in the US, we don’t like to go with obvious solutions that work _with_ nature, but instead prefer to stubbornly insist that the tide stay out. Hasn’t worked in the past, tain’t likely to work in the future either.
