JAMAICA BAY HURRICANE BARRIER

Abstract

A 12 4 mile beach erosion control and hurricane flood protection project includes Jamaica Bay and the Rockaway Inlet in the southwest corner of Long Island, New York«i The project would provide 6 1 miles of beach fill and floodwalls along the Atlantic Ocean shore and 6 3 miles of inland structures to tie back to high ground, including a 0 9 mile barrier across the inlet The barrier, with a 300 foot gated opening and a 300 foot ungated opening, would permit suppression of the design hurricane surge so as to eliminate the need of flood protection works within the bay Linear mathematical models were used to determine these openings Because of the limitation of these models to produce adequate data m the bay pertinent to environmental and ecological considerations, three hydraulic models were utilized General conclusions drawn from the hydraulic model test data are that the results of the mathematical models were upheld, a design storm with high peak is critical for determining the height of protection, a design storm with high volume rather than high peak plus rainfall runoff is critical in determining ungated openings and suppression of bay levels, and there is a combination of gated and ungated openings that would meet the flood protection, navigation, environmental and ecological objectives.