US east-coast cities are 'sitting ducks' for storms, says top Obama scientist

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/15/east-coast-sandy-storms-obama-scientist


Hurricane Sandy churns off the US east coast in the Atlantic Ocean. Photograph: NASA/Getty Images


Cities on the United States east coast are "sitting ducks" for the next big storm because of the destruction wrought by hurricane Sandy, one of Barack Obama's top scientists warned on Tuesday.

Marcia McNutt, who last week announced her resignation as director of the US Geological Survey, told a conference that Sandy had left coastal communities dangerously exposed to future storms of any size.

"Superstorm Sandy was a threshold for the north-east and we have already crossed it," McNutt told the National Council for Science and the Environment conference in Washington. "For the next storm, not even a super storm, even a run-of-the-mill nor'easter, the amount of breaches and the amount of coastal flooding will be widespread."

McNutt, a professor of marine geophysics, was careful to preface her public remarks by saying she spoke as a scientist and not an Obama Administration official. But the unusually stark warning from a departing Obama official indicates the challenges ahead in protecting American population centres from the extreme storms of a changing climate.