National Park Service

The National Park Service (NPS) has invested more than $57 million in federal funding for Hurricane Sandy recovery to restore and enhance the resiliency of coastal parks and monuments in areas where Sandy significantly affected resources, specifically New York and New Jersey. Projects include rehabilitation of boardwalks, electrical systems, visitor services, future management planning, and more.

NPS Highlighted Projects of 2016

The storm surge and high waves that occurred during Hurricane Sandy caused barrier island breaches across eastern Fire Island, Long Island and one on the Westhampton barrier beach just east of Moriches Inlet. Two of the breaches were immediately closed by USACE, but the Wilderness breach on Fire Island National Seashore, one having the greatest impact on the back-bay areas of Great South Bay, was left untouched and open to the ocean by the National Park Service. 

A variety of youth programs managed by the National Parks of New York Harbor (NPNH) have helped parks severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy to work their way back to pre-storm conditions. Each year, programs such as New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program, Youth Conservation Corps, United Activities Unlimited and the Student Conservation Association have employed more than 80 young people through NPNH to clean up beaches, plant beach grass, remove invasive plants and repair infrastructure.

The Department of the Interior’s Hurricane Sandy Mitigation funding is supporting research projects throughout Gateway National Recreation Area’s Jamaica Bay aimed at advancing our knowledge of resilience in urban coastal ecosystems.