SUPERSTORM SANDY: TEN YEARS ONThe “Cassandra of the Subways” on Hurricane Sandy, Ten Years Later
Starting in the 1990s, geophysicist Klaus Jacob started warning publicly that New York could eventually see a catastrophic storm abetted by climate change. From 2008 to 2019, he served on the New York City Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body that informs the city’s efforts to adapt infrastructure to changing climate. Most famously, he produced eearily precise projectionof where the subways would flood.
Starting in the 1990s, geophysicist Klaus Jacob started warning publicly that New York could eventually see a catastrophic storm abetted by climate change. From 2008 to 2019, he served on the New York City Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body that informs the city’s efforts to adapt infrastructure to changing climate. Most famously, he produced eerily precise projections of where the subways would flood. After the storm, TIME Magazine named him one of 50 “people who mattered in 2012,” and New York Magazine dubbed him the “Cassandra of the Subways,” after the Greek priestess whose prophecies were always accurate, but doomed to be ignored. He has continued to play a prominent role in advocating for preparedness against rising seas and extreme weather.
Kevin Krajick: How did you get involved in trying to defend the city against climate change?
Klaus Jacob: In the mid-1990s, I was working mainly as a seismologist, and with colleagues I did assessments of what would be the impact on New York of a rare magnitude 5, 6 or even 7 earthquake. I presented the results at a gathering, and my Columbia colleague Cynthia Rosenzweig came up to me and asked: “Oh, can you do these kind of risk assessments for hurricanes?” I said, “I don’t know, but let’s try it.” That was the beginning of a more than 20-year cooperation on impacts of climate change on the city, through federal and state grants, interactions with city agencies, and the New York City Panel on Climate Change.
Krajick:To what extent had the city been warned of such a storm? And to what extent did authorities listen?
Jacob:I worked with colleagues on a climate change adaptation plan for the [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] released in 2008, but it was not implemented. But the city started thinking more about this, and so did New York state. So, we got funding for a statewide assessment named ClimAID. I worked with colleagues and students, and we wrote the now infamous Chapter 9 on New York City transportation, which came out in 2011. It laid out in great detail the impacts of a Sandy-like storm on all MTA systems, including the subways. (Cont.)
