Using computer graphics
the NOAH Urban Youth Core
climate action team showed
how high the water level on
a building on the corner of
Decatur and Liverpool Street
would have been during
Super Storm Sandy.
Last week marked the one year anniversary of Super Storm Sandy that crippled the East Coast and brought New Jersey and NewYork to its knees.
To find out what a similar storm and its unprecedented 12.5 ft. storm surge would do in East Boston, the Neighborhood of Affordable Housing’s (NOAH) Urban Youth Core climate action team has been working on a public awareness project to get government officials and residents thinking of the devastating affects a Sandy-like storm would cause here.
On November 13 from 3:00 – 6:00 p.m., NOAH and the Urban Youth Core climate action team will be hosting a storm surge awareness event at Maverick Square to show people what this sort of flood would look like in Eastie.
At the November 13 event residents will be able to see first-hand what happened just a couple of hundred miles South of Boston, check on the city’s GIS database to see if their house is in a potential storm surge flood zone and learn about how they can prepare themselves and their families in the event of a freak storm scenario.
“In our fast paced lives, it’s easy to forget what happened in New York and New Jersey,” said Chris Marchi, Coordinator of Sustainability and Youth at NOAH. “But what happened there shows what can happen when flooding catches people unprepared.”
A grouping of islands tied together by filled in land, Eastie has the city’s highest percentage of low lying land. Adding to the physical vulnerabilities were a unique set of social, cultural and economic factors which can further complicate response in serious emergency situations.
“The team of community residents, civic groups and agencies which NOAH has pulled together is collaborating to ensure that East Boston residents are as prepared as possible so we can reduce damage and improve our resiliency,” said Marchi.
To prepare for the event the NOAH youth worked with yard sticks and sight levels and carried reference lines from the Boston Harbor to the community and marked Super Storm Sandy’s 12.6 ft. peak flood level on a building on the corner of Decatur and Liverpool Streets.
The NOAH team later colored the photo in using computer graphics software to demonstrate just how high the water would have been in the Maverick Square/Central Square areas.
Leading up to the November 13 event, NOAH’s youth are using PBS’s WGBH science documentary NOVA episode, ‘Inside the Megastorm’ as a public education tool. They kicked off the publicity for their Storm Surge Awareness Event by sharing the online educational program’s.