Map of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7th, 1941 showing position of US ships in harbor. For Military History magazine.

A 3D rendered map of Zavodovski Island, the northern-most island of the South Sandwich Island chain. This model was created using a hand-drawn topo map, photographs and satellite images as references. A digital elevation model (DEM) was created by plotting the elevation points, then given natural textures and features using the 3D modeling program Terragen. From the book The Pursuit of Endurance – On The Shoulders of Shackleton.

Map showing the route of Ernest Shackleton and his ship Endurance during his attempted expedition to cross Antarctica in 1915. The Endurance became trapped in pack ice and the ship and crew had to endure over one year living on the pack ice before being able to launch lifeboats to Elephant Island then on to South Georgia Island. Produced for the book THE PURSUIT OF ENDURANCE – On The Shoulders of Shackleton, released November 2015.

This map, made for the book Surviving Sandy, shows the track or path of Hurricane Sandy starting as a tropical storm in the Caribbean Sea, passing over Jamaica, Cuba, The Bahamas and into the Atlantic Ocean before making landfall new Atlantic City, New Jersey on October 29, 2012.

The Yarnell Hill Fire near Yarnell, Arizona, ignited by lightning on June 28, 2013. On June 30, it overran and killed 19 firefighters with the Prescott Fire Department’s Granite Mountain Hotshots. This map was made to illustrate the chain of events for a story in Men’s Journal magazine, October 2013 issue. See story here: The Last Battle of the Granite Mountain Hotshots

On August 7th Hoboken mayor Dawn Zimmer presented the Hoboken Resiliency and Readiness Plan.

Hoboken Resiliency and Readiness Plan from Hoboken NJ on Vimeo.

At the August 7, 2013 City Council Meeting, Mayor Zimmer presented the Hoboken Resiliency and Readiness Plan, which outlines the City’s plans to protect against flooding, power outages, and other hazards. The slides for the presentation are included within the video and can also be downloaded from www.hobokennj.org/ready

To make it easy to access the new FEMA flood maps, I’ve compiled different links and downloads just for the Hoboken area. I’ve added explanations of the different flood areas as these are hard to find on the FEMA arcgis site.

FEMA has released preliminary work map data for Atlantic, Hudson, Monmouth and Ocean Counties, New Jersey and New York City which supersedes the Advisory Base Flood Elevation (ABFE) information previously released. Additional preliminary work map data for other communities will be released in the coming months. Here is the new interactive FEMA map for Hoboken showing updated “Best Available Flood Hazard Data”

View Larger Map

Color Key to MAP:

YELLOW AREA: Floodplain Area AE
Areas with a 1% annual chance of flooding and a 26% chance of flooding over the life of a 30-year mortgage. Because detailed analyses are not performed for such areas; no depths or base flood elevations are shown within these zones.

GRAY AREA: Floodplain Area Shaded X
Area of moderate flood hazard, usually the area between the limits of the 100-year and 500-year floods. Are also used to designate base floodplains of lesser hazards, such as areas protected by levees from 100-year flood, or shallow flooding areas with average depths of less than one foot or drainage areas less than 1 square mile.

RED AREA: Floodplain Area VE
Coastal areas with a 1% or greater chance of flooding and an additional hazard associated with storm waves. These areas have a 26% chance of flooding over the life of a 30-year mortgage.

UNSHADED AREA
Area of minimal flood hazard, usually depicted on FIRMs as above the 500-year flood level.

Click to enter your report on the crowdsource map

NOTE: If you would like to submit information about your location in Hoboken or surrounding area during the hurricane, go to the new crowdsource map I’ve set up at www.hobokenflood.crowdmap.com. You can create a written report as well as upload photos documenting your experience. This information can be used for future maps and possible future emergency planning. I would like to eventually update these maps with more detailed information from these reports.

LINKS

Here is a bookmarked link directly to the to the new FEMA map for Hoboken on their arcgis website.

http://bit.ly/1asVO0X

Here is a large screen shot of the map as a jpeg that you can save to your computer.

click for larger version

Here is a downloadable PDF that you can print: 06_13_Hoboken_FEMA_Flood_Map

Here is FEMA’s explaination of the new maps:
Before Hurricane Sandy, FEMA had begun a coastal flood study to update Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) for portions of New York and New Jersey using improved methods and data to better reflect coastal flood risk. After Sandy, FEMA released Advisory Base Flood Elevation (ABFE)information based on the partially completed flood study for certain communities which were designed to help in rebuilding and recovery efforts. FEMA is now in the process of releasing preliminary work map data including the full results of the coastal flood study.

The preliminary work map data is based on the same underlying data as the ABFE information, but includes the results of a more refined analysis of shoreline conditions, including the effects of erosion and wave runup. The preliminary work map data is a “draft” product that FEMA is sharing in advance of the upcoming release of the preliminary FIRMs. The preliminary work map data will replace the ABFE information (where applicable) as the best available flood hazard data until the release of the preliminary FIRMs. Until preliminary work maps are released for a community, ABFE information (if available) will continue to represent the best available flood hazard data in those areas. In areas where no ABFE or preliminary work map information is available, the current effective FIRM should be used.

Preliminary work map data will be added to this Best Available Flood Hazard Data Map as it becomes available. Where applicable, ABFE information for communities where preliminary work map data has not yet been released will continue to be made available through this map since it will continue to represent the best available flood hazard data until the work map data is released. On the map, the symbology for the preliminary work map data is different than the ABFE information in order to distinguish between the two data sets.

Click for larger version

In the May 2013 issue of Military History magazine. This map shows the Korean War Battle of the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea, November 27 to December 11, 1950. U.S. Army and Marines serving as U.N. troops, were positioned on two sides of a  man-made lake. Surrounded by attacking Chinese forces outnumbering them eight to one, they had to fight their way out over hostile terrain–retreating 78 miles to the south in temperatures below minus 30 degrees.

The survivors of this mission are referred to as “The Chosin Few.” I met one of them recently at my mother-in-law’s assisted living facility. “Mr. John” pulled a card out of his wallet one day that said “The Chosin Few.” This was a couple months before I received this assignment, so I hadn’t even heard of the battle before, but I went home and read a little about it. It was a coincidence that this project came up when it did. “Mr. John” served with the 7th Marines, which were stationed at the furthest point on the northwest side of the reservoir.

At the time that I was finishing this map, Google released it’s crowd source map of North Korea and was allowing public input of locations. I was able to submit the Battle of The Chosin Reservoir to this map. It is the only thing identified within a very large empty area of North Korea.

Maps by Steve Walkowiak

Click to enter your report on the crowdsource map

For information on the new Hoboken flood maps released by FEMA on June 17, 2013, I’ve created a new post with more informantion and links to different versions of the map: CLICK HERE

NOTE: If you would like to submit information about your location in Hoboken or surrounding area during the hurricane, go to the new crowdsource map I’ve set up at www.hobokenflood.crowdmap.com. You can create a written report as well as upload photos documenting your experience. This information can be used for future maps and possible future emergency planning. I would like to eventually update these maps with more detailed information from these reports.

I created an earlier version of this map by overlaying an old flood map of Hoboken, NJ onto an updated street grid to get a rough idea of where the different elevation zones fell within the city. I wanted to update this map with even more information, so my next step was to work with an existing digital elevation model (DEM) to get an idea of where flooding was most likely to occur at different water levels.

I started with the highest resolution data set publicly available, which is 1/9 arc-second (3 meter) NED data from the USGS. I used a program that allows me to set water elevations, so I did a normal, 1 meter, 2 meter and 3 meter modeling of water levels from the baseline DEM. I have no way of knowing exactly what tide level was present when the original DEM was sampled, but I am going to assume an average sea level in the Hudson River and add to that. This modeling isn’t as sophisticated or as accurate as a proper engineering analysis, but gives a rough idea of what is the likely outcome of flooding.

Normal Water Level Click for larger version		Water level + 1 meter Click for larger version
Water level + 2 meters Click for larger version		Water level + 3 meters Click for larger version

I also made an animated GIF of the four different maps so that the progression of water levels can be seen in overlapping steps.

Animated GIF
Click for larger version

The first map is without any rise in tide or surge. This is where the river would be at either high or low tide. Most of the waterfront and piers are at least several feet above the high tide mark, but changes in ocean levels and future storms will require Hoboken to rethink its waterfront location and building practices.

The second map I modeled was with a rise in water level of one meter (about three and a quarter feet). At this level  you start to see some of the lowest areas of town receiving water. These are areas that are also prone to flooding even in a heavy rain. Since water will seek the lowest level, the runoff from a heavy rain could easily flood these vulnerable areas. Having lived in different parts of Hoboken over 25 years, I have a lot of anecdotal evidence to this phenomenon. The new wet weather pump station on Observer Highway is supposed to alleviate this problem in the future.

The third map shows a water level increase of an additional meter, to two meters (six and a half feet). You can see how a large area of the city is quickly inundated with just the additional three feet of water. Most of these areas of the city seem relatively level as you walk around, so it is easy to understand how this much water can make a big difference very quickly. Because much of the construction in this city is well over 100 years old, many people still have living space on the ground floors, and in some cases have even expanded living quarters into basement and sub-street level spaces. Newer construction tends to have parking garages on the ground floor, which leaves cars vulnerable to flood damage. Almost all the buildings in these areas experienced some form of damage in the hurricane. In many cases lobbies and garages had to have repairs made. Many cars that were not moved beforehand were totaled.

The water level modeling is now very close to the vintage flood map that I originally used. The blue water areas are now nearly identical to the border between the Category 1 and 2 elevations (the white dotted line between the red and orange areas). The fact that there is no flooding in the Category 1 areas along the waterfront and in the northeast corner of town is probably due to the fact that the original flood map information predates most of the new construction along the waterfront over the last 10 years. Many of these areas were probably raised slightly from their original pre-construction elevations.

The fourth map shows a water level or surge of three meters (about 10 feet) over sea level, which is about what was reported. This is above the normal high tide level– which was experienced twice during the course of the storm, so a total of maybe 14 feet above low tide. This might come very close to approximating the areas of street-level flooding from Hurricane Sandy, but may be a little higher than what was experienced. The actual level may fall somewhere between the third and fourth maps, close to the border between the Category 1 and 2 elevations. I am basing this mostly on my observations and reporting from that time. I know that the intersection of 12th and Clinton was flooded as shown because my car was parked in a garage near that corner. Since the garage was a half foot or so above street level, the car was not touched, but five blocks away, at the corner of 14th and Jefferson, one of the most iconic photographs of the hurricane was taken. I’m hoping that reporting on the crowdsource map will confirm the actual scope of the flooding.

You can see what the original “island” of Hoboken might have once looked like. A lot of the lowest levels of the city had been built up over marshy areas–mostly in the western part of the town–for expansion in the 19th Century. You can also see how easy it might be to protect much of Hoboken in the future since there are only a few vulnerable areas at the north and south parts of town where river water can easily encroach on the lower lying areas. There is a barrier along most of the eastern edge of the town because of this naturally occurring mound of land (that is the lower edge of the map since it is oriented 77 degrees clockwise, with north pointing more toward the right). The other engineering necessity would be preventing backflow through the sewers when the water got above a certain level.

Hoboken FEMA Flood Map
Click to see larger version

SANDY FEMA FLOOD MAP

FEMA has updated their flood maps post-Sandy and added in the effective flood zones and flood risk areas. You can view their map by CLICKING HERE On this map you have the option of selecting different content layers to show the Effective Flood Zones from Sandy (Select the content option tab and check on: National Flood Hazard Layer (Sandy Area)). I’ve show this area on my own version of the map for comparison to the above maps. Click on the map to the right to see a larger version.

Click to enter your report on the crowdsource map

NOTE: If you would like to submit information about your location in Hoboken or surrounding area during the hurricane, go to the new crowdsource map I’ve set up at www.hobokenflood.crowdmap.com. You can create a written report as well as upload photos documenting your experience. This information can be used for future maps and possible future emergency planning. I would like to eventually update these maps with more detailed information from these reports.

Maps by Steve Walkowiak

Click for larger version

Map Showing the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas National Park, the location of the 19th Century Fort Jefferson

For National Geographic Adventure magazine, Nov/Dec 2001, Map by Steve Walkowiak