The Verge - Hurricane Sandy: a record-breaking storm rocks America's east coast

MTA tests inflatable 'plug' it hopes can shield NYC subway from weather disasters

2013-05-17T17:52:47Z

After the unprecedented damage to New York City's transit system brought on by Hurricane Sandy, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has been looking into near-term solutions that could shield subway tunnels from flood waters come next storm season. It tested one of those safeguards yesterday for the first time by inflating a 30-foot plug (designed by the US Department of Homeland Security) that could effectively seal off New York's subways in the event of a natural disaster. The test run took place at the South Ferry station in Manhattan — one of eight stations consumed by flooding in Sandy's aftermath.

Incoming MTA chairman Tom Prendergast told the Associated Press that there are 540 spots in lower Manhattan alone that...

Operation Photo Rescue helps restore timeless shots damaged by superstorm Sandy

2013-02-04T16:39:17Z

One of the most heartbreaking aspects of facing a natural disaster can be the loss of precious photographs. Homes can be rebuilt, damaged cars fixed, and gadgets repurchased with the help of insurance. But the same doesn't hold always hold true for your personal photos. Their destruction can make it feel as though you're losing the very memory captured in the shot, which has prompted Operation Photo Rescue to mobilize in support of those impacted by last year's superstorm Sandy. We've already seen people band together to help reconnect displaced photos with their rightful owners, and now OPR is determined to help preserve timeless heirlooms. Founded after Hurricane Katrina, the volunteer group (estimated to have around 3,000 members)...

System restore: how archivists salvaged 1,500 volumes of digital art from Sandy's floodwaters

2013-01-15T20:00:05Z

Hard drive crashes and corrupted files repeatedly instruct us on the importance of keeping media backups. But when data loss looms as the result of massive physical damage from a major natural disaster, finding better ways to digitally archive our history suddenly becomes a moral imperative.

As countless tri-state area residents were left without power, heat, and even their homes in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, art galleries and studio spaces in New York City wrestled with problems of their own. Like many other spaces in Manhattan’s gallery-friendly Chelsea neighborhood, non-profit art and technology lab Eyebeam sat well within high-risk "Zone A" when the superstorm made landfall last October. But despite preparations, the space...

Is this your family? Photos washed to sea by Sandy find a home on Facebook

2012-12-01T19:55:34Z

Hurricane Sandy's damage to the East Coast of the United States is now estimated at over $70 billion dollars. Thousands of people lost their homes in the worst affected areas. One of those harder hit areas is Union Beach, New Jersey. A neighborhood group, lead by Jeannette Van Houton and Mary Danielson, has organized with one goal: to scour the beaches in their local areas, rescuing photos which have washed ashore. The group then scans the photos in the hopes of eventually finding their owners.

Danielson, who is a professional genealogist, says, "I became involved when I read the first story about resident Jeannette Van Houten's effort to collect and reconnect photos to their owners. I offered to help and haven't left." The group has...

Palantir's terrorist-tracking technology used for Hurricane Sandy relief

2012-11-27T20:40:50Z

Disaster recovery groups still have a lot of work to do in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, and one of these volunteer organizations has optimized its efforts using software from a company called Palantir, Bloomberg Businessweek reports. The software allows relief coordinators from Team Rubicon to track their volunteers using GPS, upload geo-tagged photos for reference, and determine which areas are most in need of assistance using demographic, census, and poverty data combined with damage reports.

Palantir — aptly named after the seeing stones in Lord of the Rings — gained prominence in the past several years not for designing disaster-relief systems, but providing US intelligence with software to track ally troops and suspected...

After Sandy, FCC to examine emergency preparedness with field hearings across US

2012-11-21T18:54:29Z

Hurricane Sandy had a devastating effect on wireless infrastructure in areas hardest hit by the storm. As a result, the FCC today announced plans to conduct field hearings throughout the US that will assess network resiliency and investigate how carriers can keep communications flowing during natural disasters and other situations where their services become most vital. But the meetings will also address emergency preparedness to a wider degree. Aside from the telecom focus, these hearings aim to highlight our dependency on fuel during emergencies (many NYC-based companies relied on it to stay operational during Sandy), resource pooling in times of crisis, and 911 accessibility, among other timely concerns.

The FCC looks to avoid...

Into the vault: the operation to rescue Manhattan's drowned internet

2012-11-17T15:01:03Z

At Broad Street, near the tip of Lower Manhattan, the situation is far from normal. Many streets in the area are closed off and packed with trucks, equipment, and generators. Manhole covers are open everywhere. Verizon’s Broad Street central office, which routes local phone, DSL, and FiOS data, resembles a military field base. Walls of sandbags remain around the building, and the constant hum of generators and pumps bounces down the streets. The lobby of the building is covered in plywood to protect any decorations it may have, and the entrance has become a type of checkpoint lit by a string of incandescent bulbs.

On Wednesday, two weeks after the storm, I met with Verizon's Executive Director of Operations, Christopher D. Levendos,...

New York's recent power outage makes a strong case for decentralized energy

2012-11-06T09:47:03Z

New York suffered through an extended blackout in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, an issue that could have been avoided entirely given a rethink of how electricity is supplied to the city. The New Republic puts forward the idea of a decentralized power network, mimicking the physical topology of the internet while shunning the current system of having any one central point of failure in the grid. Rather than relying on substations for entire neighbourhoods, tenants could generate their own power through various methods and pass on the electricity to their local microgrid. The article suggests that the technical challenges aren’t impossible to overcome, but that the biggest hurdle facing decentralized energy is getting the utility...