When Hurricane Sandy struck New York City on October 29, 2012, the dark waters of Flushing Bay poured over the edges of LaGuardia Airport, flooding parts of the facility’s 7,000-foot long east-west runway, and damaging lighting and navigation systems. The floodwaters created an eerie image of jetways ending in water, as if they had been converted into boat ramps.
This was not the first time that LaGuardia suffered major flooding during a storm, nor will it be the last. Due to climate change-related sea level rise, LaGuardia and other coastal hubs throughout the U.S. face a growing risk of flooding during even modest storms.
A draft federal assessment of climate change impacts, which was released on Jan. 11, named a dozen major U.S. airports as being particularly vulnerable to sea level rise-related flooding risks, including all three of the major New York-area airports. And just last week, a new report found that the New York metropolitan area may face a greater amount of sea level rise during the next several decades than was anticipated just a few years ago.
The region’s two other major airports also experienced storm-surge flooding during Hurricane Sandy, albeit to a lesser degree. John F. Kennedy International Airport saw flooding from Jamaica Bay, and Newark (N.J.) International Airport was hit by the storm surge that coursed through New York Harbor and into Newark Bay, flooding the eastern sections of the busy international gateway, and parts of the neighboring port, where waters reached 4 feet above ground level.
All three hubs closed on Oct. 28, before the storm hit, causing a ripple effect of tens of thousands of flight cancellations around the world. Newark and JFK Airports were able to resume limited service on Oct. 31, while LaGuardia was the last to reopen at a reduced capacity a day later. According to FlightStats.com, more than 20,000 flights nationwide were canceled due to Hurricane Sandy with roughly half of those cancellations coming from the New York-area airports.
The trio of airports serve more passengers annually than any other metropolitan area in the world, other than London. Passenger traffic at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s four commercial airports which includes the underutilized Stewart International Airport in Orange County, N.Y. totaled 109.4 million in 2012. LaGuardia alone accounted for 25.7 million passengers during the year, with more than 1,000 daily landings and takeoffs, according to Port Authority figures.
2013 The E.W. Scripps Co.