MTA on recovering from Sandy and preparing for the next one

A year after Superstorm Sandy tore through New York City, the full extent of its damage on the subway system is still being assessed by the MTA, with plans to safeguard the system against future storms to potentially last beyond 2016.

"This is a multiyear, multiphase process in order to really start preparing for these types of storms moving forward," said Veronica Vanterpool, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

The carnage Sandy wrought knocked the A train out of service in the Rockaways, washing out 1,500 feet of tracks and littering them with debris including Jet skis and boats; flooded a new South Ferry station two years after it opened; and flooded nine underwater train tunnels, causing a 24/7 shutdown of the R train Montague tunnel for 14 months and a dozen weekend closures between July and December for the G train Greenpoint tunnel. The MTA continues to assess the damage to the system, making permanent fixes on equipment that was brought back in operation soon after the storm with temporary band-aids, and restoring underwater tunnels that took in corrosive salt water.

The subway system suffered $4.8 billion of damage during Sandy and the MTA figures $5 billion will be needed to gird the transit system against future storms by waterproofing stations and tunnels, and moving sensitive equipment out of harm's way.

"When it's men and women versus Mother Nature, Mother Nature wins," Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters last week. "But we are in better shape than we were last time and we'll be in even better shape."

DESIGNING A BETTER SYSTEM

Cuomo Tuesday will join MTA officials to unveil designs for waterproofing the stations and tunnels as part of a $3.5 billion package of federal Sandy aid.

Fred Smith, the MTA's chief engineer and a capital program executive, said there are more than 600 points in lower Manhattan where water can seep into the system.

"No. 1 thing we've learned is locations of our vulnerable entry points," Smith said. "A half inch or one-inch gap in an emergency exit can bring in a million gallons in less than an hour. The numbers are staggering."

During the storm, sandbags and wood barriers used in some lower Manhattan stations were no match for floodwaters that shattered them into large pieces of debris.

Smith said the MTA is looking at barriers for station entrances where at least three sides can withstand 11 feet of water.

"Then, we would look for something that could be quickly deployed over the front of the entrance," Smith said.

Another kind of temporary barrier the MTA isconsiderering are logs that would fit into grooves at a station entrance, according to Smith.

"We're looking at ways that we can build into the entrance [and] the ability to close them quickly," he said.

He also said there are nine fan plants -- facilities that house fans that pull out smoke or push in fresh air into the subway -- that would be redesigned and fitted with reinforced concrete walls to withstand pressure of flood water.

John O'Grady, an MTA engineer, told The New York Times magazine that the agency is also considering "tiger dams," which are bladders filled with water to plug up an opening.

FIXING THE DAMAGE

While contractors are designing a storm-resistant transit system, crews are making permanent repairs on signals, cables and the electromechanical equipment housed deep in stations, away from riders' eyes.

"People don't see where we're doing all the repairs," Smith said. "They're in rooms at track level, they're in between stations."

The MTA is taking advantages of service disruptions in the two most heavily damaged underwater tubes -- the Montague and Greenpoint tunnels -- to make Sandy-related repairs and relocate equipment.

Even as the MTA shuts No. 7 train service on several weekends to install a new modern signal system, a contract was issued for Sandy-related repairs to damaged pump rooms and power feeds.

"We're piggybacking those outages that had already been planned for," Smith said. "We're trying to minimize our [impact] to the community and disruption to normal train service and normal life."

Smith said that equipment that shut down completely after the storm-power, wiring and water pumps, for instance-were quickly repaired so they could be put back in operation, but the extensive damage made these fixes temporary.

Surveying and repairing the nine damaged underwater tubes will last into 2016, with more resiliency projects beyond that, Smith said.

"The problem ... is there's just too much work to be done," Smith said. "We're still moving 5 million people a day."