MTA Receives Federal Grant for Hudson Line

I stumbled upon this info on the MTA web site and thought it was worth sharing:

http://www.mta.info/news-metro-north-hu ... 08-million

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and MTA Metro-North Railroad today announced that Metro-North has received a federal grant of $20.8 million to harden Metro-North’s Hudson Line against future storm surge flooding events of the type experienced during Superstorm Sandy. The grant will be used to design and build 92 elevated steel equipment platforms along 30 miles of track from the South Bronx to Croton-Harmon, in Westchester County, as well as provide for the design and construction of perimeter protection, waterproofing, hardening of substations and train yard buildings, and installation of video and electronic monitoring of Metro-North facilities and infrastructure. The grant will be matched by $6.9 million in MTA funds.

They're going to have to build a dyke along the southern edge of the Croton-Harmon train station and Harmon Yards complex if they want to keep all that equipment safe.
I've lived in Croton, on and off, for most of my life. I was here during Floyd, Irene and Sandy.
I've been a firefighter in Croton's heavy rescue company through both Irene and Sandy.
I even had an unplanned close-up view of the under side of the Croton River trestle DURING Irene, as one of the rescuers who went out to rescue those white rafters (I had a bad day).
I was in a boat again during Sandy, pulling people out of their homes in the Half Moon Bay condos and at the bottom of Brook Street.
During Sandy the water came across all the tracks at Sennasqua, across all the lanes of Rt. 9, across North Riverside Ave. and up Brook Street.
The water on the south side of the yards flooded out the village's DPW garage (fun not having fuel pumps for a while).
If I remember, there are photos of the water level coming up to the door sills of some of the Bombardier Shoreliner cars in the southern part of the yard.

As a former electrician turned electrical engineer, I know exactly how badly electrical equipment and water get along.
There is no way $208m is enough to harden all that infrastructure along the Hudson Line.