Route Fifty: Nassau County, New York, located on Long Island, saw 1 percent of homes flood and 1.1 million residents lose power, when Superstorm Sandy hit in late October 2012. Nassau’s barrier islands, marshy lowlands and streams and rivers flowing to its bayfront render it susceptible to flooding from storms and poor drainage.

So when Rebuild by Design, a collaborative partnership between the Obama administration and The Rockefeller Foundation, offered to lend resilient design expertise to the county’s recovery effort, Nassau jumped at the opportunity and the Living with the Bay project was born.

“These large-scale, multi-benefits projects are trying to solve multiple community challenges and require unprecedented coordination across city agencies and other stakeholders like the New York City Housing Authority, utilities and also state and federal government,” said Jessica Grannis, Georgetown Climate Center adaptation program manager. “They have to get beyond silos.

Grannis was the lead author on the new report “Rebuilding with Resilience”, analyzing the legal and policy challenges experienced by the six innovative RBD projects and using them as test cases to scale elsewhere. Read more>>