After Superstorm Sandy hit in 2012, science and news organization Climate Central identified the top 12 U.S. airports vulnerable to storm-surge flooding accelerated by sea-level rise.
Two of the 12 airports, San Francisco and Oakland, are at the forefront of addressing the issue. Rinaldi Wibowo, SFO project manager, says the airport’s eight miles of shoreline is protected by earth berms, sheet-pile walls and concrete walls, installed over the past 30 years. “We have two locations with no protection: outside the airfield at the wastewater treatment plant and a U.S. Coast Guard air station. Those have no walls. Those are the gaps,” observes Wibowo.