Hurricane Sandy and our ecosystem

Hurricane sandy lashed the eastern coast of the United States (27-29 October 2012) and rattled the life in sixteen states by paralyzing the entire activities there. It killed fifty five persons in various incidents related to the super storm. Hundreds of homes completely collapsed while more than fifty homes gutted due to the electric short circuits in watery cables. Nearly fifty million people directly or indirectly hit due to this cyclone which equally played havoc with the infrastructure. The pressure of the hurricane sandy shed the entire landscape along the eastern coast of the US and badly affected the coastal areas.

Environmental impact of sandy

The environmental impact of the hurricane sandy will be assessed weeks after the normalization of the situation but it is widely believed that most of the green losses would be quite enormous to offset because nature if once hit cannot be compensated to its original state very quickly and if the damages to the nature are because of any natural calamity then its offset is more difficult. The initial impression of this havoc is enough to tell what is going to happen to our ecosystem consequently.

According to the environmental experts the environmental impact of the hurricane sandy is surely long-term in nature and would affect public health directly. In the first move, just after the super storm, the water quality of the affected area needs to be analyzed because of the flow of entire flood water into the various water bodies with loads of garbage and dust particles. 

Infrastructure damages by sandy

The damages to the infrastructure including roads, bridges, tunnels, energy supply and sewerage system are feared more than estimates - despite of the stronger than normal foundations of these facilities - because of the intensity of this cyclone. According to the initial estimates the total losses to infrastructure may be around $54 billion.

Sandy added land pollution load

Its devastation abnormally added millions of tons of garbage and solid waste on the land of eastern parts of the US owing to the debris of the collapsed infrastructure. Extraordinary efforts need to be taken to dispose of the abnormally generated solid waste because regular garbage collection arrangements would be quite insufficient to handle this emergency situation.

Sandy and climate change

There is a widespread opinion that the super storm sandy was the result of the rising climate change which has engulfed the whole planet earth. However, a segment of environmentalist contends this premise on the ground that such natural disasters have been common on the earth from the very beginning of the life on our land when there was no pollution. Earlier, natural catastrophe of this much magnitude was witnessed at the eastern coast of the US some 108 years ago when the pollution was not a big problem in any part of the world.

Green remedial steps after sandy

Green activists are of the view that in the beginning rehabilitation from this natural calamity is must to restore normalcy in the area after removing the after-effects of the damages to the infrastructure. In the medium term, they say, the reconstruction of the destroyed infrastructure and affected environment and ecosystem should be carried out simultaneously because it is not so difficult to reconstruct the roads and buildings but to offset the damages to natural resources is an uphill task. For this purpose the disaster relief and environmental watchdogs have to jointly devise a strategy to save our ecosystem from this one of the worst natural calamities.

What do you think on how to offset the losses –apart from relief and rehabilitation efforts – occurred to the nature owing to hurricane sandy? Please give your opinion in the comments section below.