Investigation Exposes New Jersey Transit's Botched Sandy Prep

The results of a months-long investigation by WNYC/New Jersey Public Radio and The Record reveal the widly divergent ways in which New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and New Jersey Transit planned for, and responded to, Hurricane Sandy. 

Among the investigation's findings: "the fate of NJ Transit’s trains – over a quarter of the agency’s fleet - didn’t just hang on one set of wrong inputs. It followed years of missed warnings, failures to plan, and lack of coordination under Governor Chris Christie, who has expressed ambivalence about preparing for climate change while repeatedly warning New Jerseyans not to underestimate the dangers of severe storms."

"Official response to this blunder has largely stuck to one script: No one could have predicted the severity of the storm, and the yards had never flooded before," report Kate Hinds and Andrea Bernstein. "But NJ Transit’s miscalculations came even as New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority dived into climate change adaptation preparations."