[Eidolon]

What If an Irma-Like Hurricane Hit the New York City Metro Area?
By Christopher Flavelle and Henry Goldman
September 19, 2017

The NY-NJ Metropolitan Storm Surge Working Group is pushing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to approve a $30 billion system of retractable sea barriers at the mouth of New York Harbor and in the Throgs Neck narrows north of the East River. Similar engineering projects now protect cities including New Orleans; Rotterdam, Holland, and St. Petersburg, Russia.

The system could protect about 800 miles of coast from Elizabeth, New Jersey, to the Bronx, and as much as $1 trillion in assets, said Robert Yaro, former executive director of the Regional Plan Association, a policy-research group.

“We in New York are far behind, and among the cities on Earth we have the most to lose,” Yaro said.

Even a "mere" category 3 hurricane making landfall in or close to the Tri-state area would likely be the most expensive natural disaster in history, 30 billion is a drop in the bucket.