Microsoft Word - SustainabilityReport_BCC.doc

Figure 1: Though a hurricane in New York City is not especially probable, the results

could be catastrophic. A storm surge could endanger millions. Mathematics is essential

for planning evacuation and response strategies. Credit: Fred Roberts.

Indeed, The Federal Emergency Management Agency has identified three

“max max” disasters that would cause devastation on a scale never seen before,

and this is one of them. But the damage remains to be dealt with in the future.

The immediate question is: What’s the most efficient way to evacuate?

When the time comes that New York City faces that question, the quality

of its answer could depend significantly on how much we’ve invested in

mathematical sciences research today.

The odds of a hurricane like this in any given year are extraordinarily low.

But over the long run, a strong hurricane is virtually certain to hit Manhattan,

particularly as the climate becomes less stable and sea levels rise. And human

population along the shoreline has relentlessly increased, magnifying our

vulnerability. Determining how many people can be evacuated and how quickly,

what the safest option is for people too frail to travel, the conditions under which

it would be safe for people to weather the storm in place, where people should

evacuate to, and many more such questions rely on mathematical models that

can simulate terrible scenarios we hope never to play out in real life.

Such models cannot be generated by mathematicians acting in isolation.

They require partnerships between mathematical scientists and scientists in