The local committee tasked with recommending projects to improve storm resiliency in Gerritsen Beach and Sheepshead Bay has a good chance of getting funding for all the initiatives — except the one the community wants the most.
Residents agreed that the most important way to protect the area from future storm surges would be to raise the Belt Parkway to form a flood barrier, but the New York Rising Gerritsen Beach and Sheepshead Bay Planning Committee determined that the project would cost far more than what the community had to spend.
The committee had to limit its wish list to projects costing a total of $13.3 million, while elevating the parkway would cost $30 million by itself. Instead, the group proposed a $100,000 study to look at potential flood-prevention measures along the Belt Parkway on Plumb Island.
The list of projects now goes to the Governor’s office for approval.
A top committee member said the flood barrier should remain a top priority for the community.
“This is the project everybody should be paying attention to,” said Jim Donovan, a Gerritsen Beach resident and committee leader.
The study would investigate whether flood barriers and gates, dune enhancements and wetlands, or sea walls and road improvements could prevent future flooding in Gerritsen Beach and its coastal neighbors to the west.
During Hurricane Sandy, seawater washed over the Belt Parkway on Plumb Island and inundated Gerritsen Beach with flood waters 9-12 feet higher than high tide, according to a New York Rising report.
Whatever the study finds, there is no immediate money to raise the thoroughfare — though there are a variety of potential sources, Donovan said.
One would be the state Department of Transportation, which funds road improvements and could raise the Belt Parkway on a solid dune, he said.
Other options include incorporating the area into a wider flood-resiliency project spearheaded by the Army Corps of Engineers in Jamaica Bay and the Rockaway Peninsula, according to a spokeswoman for the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery.
New York Rising Community Reconstruction Program is a federally funded initiative run by the state aimed at tapping local experience to design projects to make Sandy-ravaged communities more resilient in extreme weather.
Other projects the committee are submitting include:
• Outfitting up to 4,000 homes with sewer cut-off valves and city sewer outflows with back-flow prevention devices.
• Retrofitting Vollies Hall and the Gerritsen Beach Fire Department Station — which served as emergency centers after Sandy — with storm protections and a second floor, as well as creating an emergency response center in Sheepshead Bay.
• Planning an evacuation route for Gerritsen Beach, half of which is only served by one road in or out.
