Hoboken Oceanographer Dreams of Slowing Hurricanes Before Landfall
An oceanographer with the Stevens Institute thinks cooling the water in a hurricane's path could slow it down
- Chris Glorioso for nbcnewyork.com November 21st, 2012
- Source: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/How-to-Stop-a-Hurricane-Before-It-Strikes-180240021.html
What if Sandy could have been diverted from the East Coast? What if scientists could have cooled the ocean underneath the storm clouds, depriving the hurricane of the warm energy it needed to keep barreling toward New York and New Jersey?
Dr. Alan Blumberg, an oceanographer with the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, says he knows how to do just that. And it would only cost about $300 million, a mere fraction of the $50 billion in damage Sandy is estimated to have caused.
“Imagine New York City, if we could stop Hurricane Sandy before it got here, it would be unbelievably cost effective,” Blumberg said.
His plan is to slow down a hurricane by deploying hundreds of thousands of floating tubular pumps -- directly in the path of an approaching storm.
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Experts at Polytechnic Institute of New York University suggest flood-proofing vehicle and subway tunnels would be one of the most cost-effective ways to shield against the destructive power of hurricane storm surge.
