NYC Comptroller and Urban Ocean Lab Center Community Efforts in New Report about Superstorm Sandy Recovery and Resilience

Brooklyn, NY — Ahead of the ten-year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy making landfall in New York City, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and Urban Ocean Lab partnered to highlight a dozen local initiatives and organizations that developed disaster emergency response and environmental resiliency projects in the wake of the storm. The joint report — Social Cohesion as a Climate Strategy: Reflections on Superstorm Sandy — discusses lessons learned from community recovery efforts and identifies ways for government to support ongoing resiliency work led at the community level.  

“Strengthening social cohesion is an important climate strategy for coastal cities, like New York.” said Lara Croushore, Managing Director of Urban Ocean Lab, a Brooklyn-based policy think tank. “Top-down approaches alone aren’t going to cut it, as we’ve seen from Sandy and so many other storms. By partnering with and investing in communities and social networks, we can all be better prepared for worsening climate impacts.” 

“Those days after Superstorm Sandy will forever be etched in my mind, as neighbors came together in extraordinary ways — to save lives, bring food, clean up, shelter those displaced, and then to plan and rebuild communities more resilient than before,” said Comptroller Brad Lander. “Strengthening that community resilience is essential for New York City in the era of the climate crisis. City government has a critical role to play in mitigating climate catastrophes with capital projects, but physical infrastructure alone won’t keep us safe. We must also ensure that communities have the resources and tools they need to care for each other and their neighborhoods, whatever storms come our way.”

The report details efforts in the immediate aftermath of the storm and new programs, infrastructure, and organizations that emerged in the years since. In Red Hook, Brooklyn — where residents of the Red Hook Houses went without power for three weeks, heat for 17 days, and running water for 11 days — the Red Hook Initiative opened its doors to over 1,200 residents to get a hot meal, charge cell phones, receive medical attention, consult legal support, and obtain supplies. In Staten Island, a new coalition of Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD) formed with dedicated staff to coordinate emergency preparedness efforts across the borough, creating the capacity for community resiliency that became essential during the COVID-19 pandemic. Local initiatives including The Flossy and Fresh Creek Civic Association installed community gardens and native plantings in their neighborhood to increase water capture during flooding. 

The report highlights the response, recovery, and resilience lessons that community organizations have learned from their work in the immediate aftermath and decade since Superstorm Sandy.  

1. Organizational development: As a result of their experiences with Superstorm Sandy, many existing community organizations shifted their focus towards climate resilience—creating new programs and hiring staff.  
2. Education and capacity building: To increase climate preparedness in their communities, many community organizations now offer educational and capacity building programs. These include youth programs that build climate and environmental literacy as well as organizational education and training programs in order to build their capacity to better serve their communities. 
3. Community-owned infrastructure: In the decade since Superstorm Sandy, communities across New York City have worked to ensure that the physical infrastructure of their neighborhoods—including energy and telecommunications systems—is more resilient. Community organizations are also investing in community-designed, -owned, and -maintained green infrastructure as a foundation for lasting resilience. 
4. Community-led planning: Many community organizations developed their own climate resiliency and action plans to address the specific needs and priorities of their communities to guide advocacy efforts and programming. While some of these planning efforts have taken place as part of official City-led processes, others are independently led efforts initiated in response to inequities in City plans.  
5. Government engagement: Superstorm Sandy catalyzed $15 billion in federal disaster recovery funding for New York City to repair damaged infrastructure and increase coastal protections. Restoration projects entail years-long planning and design processes, as well as a significant amount of time and energy from community organizations. Community organizations have been advocating on behalf of their neighbors on a myriad of issues and at all levels of government. 

The report identifies the need for investments in social and physical infrastructure, resources to prioritize the needs of our most vulnerable residents, community self-determination about their neighborhood’s futures, and community-sourced funding to resource storm preparedness and recovery. The report recommends achieving these goals by: 

1. Moving from models of community engagement to collaborative governance. 
2. Creating dedicated flexible funding for community organizations to implement resiliency solutions. 
3. Establishing on-call emergency contracts for community organizations to institutionalize their role in climate disaster preparedness and response. 
4. Developing a comprehensive community organization training program for climate preparedness and resiliency. 
5. Investing in resilience of community organizations’ physical spaces, establishing them as ‘Community Resilience Hubs.’ 

“The Comptroller’s report highlights the critical role that residents and community based organizations play in a neighborhood’s recovery. The commemoration of Sandy is an important reminder to not just learn from the past, but also to take stock of the current moment. It’s a reminder of the need to address critical repair needs in Red Hook Houses. It’s a reminder that even though many of the more affluent parts of the city were rebuilt post-Sandy, Red Hook still has a way to go,” said Tevina Willis, Red Hook resident and the Community Organizing Manager at Red Hook Initiative.

“There is a tremendous amount of knowledge, experience and innovative thinking about resilience embedded within the communities around Jamaica Bay and New York City. This report highlights the importance of empowering communities to make important decisions about their future well-being in this era of climate change. We applaud the NYC Comptroller and Urban Ocean Lab for listening and offering these constructive recommendations,” said Professor Michael Menser, Associate Director of Public Engagement at CUNY’s Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay, and Brett Branco, Director, Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay. 

“The Comptroller’s report was developed by collaborating with various organizations across NYC so that we the citizens of the city of New York can better understand what worked and what did not work in regards to NYC recovery and resilience after Hurricane Sandy devastated us in October of 2012. 10 years have passed and as an environmental and climate justice organizer this report gives us all reason to strategically engage and create social infrastructure and build community power to address our collective needs across the city of New York.”, said Karen Blondel, President, Red Hook West Resident Association.

Urban Ocean Lab and the Comptroller’s office conducted interviews with the following community organizations to inform this report:  

Carey Gardens Resident Association
Fresh Creek Civic Association
Good Old Lower East Side
Lower East Side East River Residents Committee
Natural Resources Protective Association
Red Hook Initiative
Rockaway Initiative for Sustainability and Equity (RISE)
Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay
Staten Island Long Term Recovery Organization
Staten Island Non For Profit Association, including Staten Island COAD
The Flossy Organization
WE ACT for Environmental Justice

###