CNN Presents: 'The Coming Storms' - Commercial (January 2013)
Duration: 41 secs
SBU investigator Malcolm Bowman begins speaking at 28 seconds into the commercial
Superstorms are a new breed of weather that put lives and cities that were once protected in the eye of their fury. Are we ready for the next one?
CNN Presents: 'The Coming Storms' - Preview
Duration: 3 mins and 39 secs
Erin Burnett talks to CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers about the new documentary, "The Coming Storms" ...
Are we ready for the next super storm? A team of CNN reporters and producers have spent the past three months investigating the power and aftermath of super storm sandy.
As it turns out, we came dangerously close to never receiving the early warning of widespread flooding and power outages.
OutFront tonight: CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers with a preview of "The Coming Storms" ...
Monday, January 7, 2013 - Seven years ago, the only thing protecting the low-lying city of New Orleans from a massive storm surge was an inadequate and outdated system of levees and floodwalls.
It's arguably the best hurricane protection system in the country -- but Malcolm Bowman hopes it won't be for long.
That's because Bowman wants to build a barrier system across the 5-mile-wide opening to New York Harbor that he says could have protected America's most populated city from Sandy's devastating storm surge.
"If barriers and sand dunes had been properly built in the last eight years, none of this would have happened," he said.
Bowman leads the Storm Surge Research Group at Long Island's Stony Brook University. The group promotes a plan to create an elaborate system of barriers and causeways that would virtually flood-proof much of metro New York.
They say their "Outer Harbor Gateway" plan would cost billions of dollars less than the damage that Sandy inflicted upon the state of New York.
Bowman has spent years warning officials of the storm surge risk to New York City.
Less than a month after Katrina, he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times warning that the same thing could happen to New York City -- and outlining his storm barrier system solution to prevent it from happening.
He tried again in 2008 as part of a climate change panel convened by New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
But no barriers were built.
Today, Bowman is hopeful that New York authorities will green-light his plan. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is awaiting recommendations from a commission that he tasked with finding long-term solutions to protect his state from future weather calamities.
Two commissions on disaster preparedness and response have already offered their recommendations to the governor, who is expected to announce several proposals during his "state of the state" address on Wednesday.
Bowman's idea is not new: Similar barriers already exist in Stamford, Connecticut, and Providence, Rhode Island, and massive barriers are already in operation in the Netherlands and Russia.
With the rising sea levels -- a result of the shrinking polar ice cap -- experts including Bowman say the risk of massive flooding events is increasing each year -- and not just in low-lying communities like New Orleans.
"We have to start planning," Bowman said. "It's no longer every person for themselves. There's too much at risk. We have to do it."
CNN Presents: 'The Coming Storms'
Duration: 40 mins and 56 sec
SBU investigator Malcolm Bowman begins speaking at 34 minutes 19 seconds into the broadcast
"I've never, in 26 years of forecasting, ever, seen anything like this," said Chad Myers, weather anchor and severe weather expert, while reporting on Superstorm Sandy.
Myers, along with CNN's Jason Carroll, Ed Lavandera, David Mattingly, Frederik Pleitgen, and John Zarrella, report for a new CNN documentary this weekend investigating the factors that made the impact of superstorm Sandy so devastating. The documentary also offers insights from researchers and scientists on climate change, potential solutions to limiting the impact of future storms on critical infrastructure like power grids, and the potential impact of reductions in the funding of satellite systems that aid meteorological storm predictions.
Stony Brook University (SBU) School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) oceanography professor and storm surge expert Dr. Malcolm Bowman was filmed in SBU's Endeavour 120 on December 5, 2012 for CNN's Superstorm Sandy documentary.
One day earlier (December 4, 2012), Bowman filmed with the news crew at Breezy Point, Queens and Far Rockaway, on Long Island's south shore in Nassau County.
For the last decade, New York Sea Grant has provided principal funding to Bowman and SBU's Storm Surge Research Group to work on storm surge science, coastal defense systems and policy issues related to regional protection of New York City and Long Island. The Group was initially formed to develop coastal early warning system for emergency response against flooding in Metropolitan New York.
NYSG's topical resource links and news items can be found at www.nyseagrant.org/hurricane.
