Lessons from Sandy : Federal Policies to Build Climate-Resilient Coastal Regions

Hurricane Sandy brought the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan area to a standstill, flooding key arteries, disabling power plants, damaging more than 600,000 homes, and killing 60 people. The scope of the devastation was a wake-up call that elevated the discussion about disasters and climate change at all levels of government. This report, copublished with Regional Plan Association, identifies a set of policies, regulations, and administrative practices that federal agencies can adopt to help coastal metropolitan regions become more climate resilient--able to recover quickly from shocks and stressors while at the same time reducing future risk in the face of climate change and rising sea levels.