One of the tragedies of our budget crisis is that the amount we spend on on stuff that helps everyone - infrastructure - continues to decline to make room for our ballooning entitlement spending.

And the deficit has become so politicized that any time anyone proposes spending a bit more on infrastructure - and putting more Americans back to work in the process - members of one of our two political teams freak out.

That's a bummer.

Because lots of Americans are out of work. And our national infrastructure is becoming a global joke.

Countries that don't mind having taxes that are modestly higher than our taxes and infrastructure spending that is modestly higher than our infrastructure spending are building awesome new tools that help everyone.

Like storm surge barriers.

New York isn't the only city in the world (or country) that is exposed to storm surge damage. And, unlike many other cities, New York appears to have a relative easy way to protect itself.

The attached slides, from a 2009 deck, offer one potential solution to New York's storm-surge exposure - a porous barrier across the entrance to New York Harbor. According to the deck, such a barrier would cost $7 billion.

To put that $7 billion in perspective, its significantly less than the $12 billion price tag on one of our new aircraft carriers, the U.S.S. Gerald Ford.

So, whaddya say, folks? Time to consider a storm surge barrier for the country's biggest city? Or should we increase defense spending and build two-thirds of another aircraft carrier?

David Fuller's view They make a good point. This article also contains numerous photos and diagrams of other storm surge defences.

London, which is mostly built on a floodplain, has long had its Embankment defence and the Thames Barrier was finally approved in 1965, following the drowning of over 300 people in 1953.


I would question whether it is adequate to deal with the surge that NYC has just experienced. Personally, I would rather see London's flood defences reinforced, upgraded and extended, rather than have our tax money pay for Trident.