Climate: Storm warning - to protect New York, the US needs to invest in infrastructure

"The next storm could hit next year or in 20 years. The real question for New Yorkers is, given that there will be another storm, what do they want it to look like? And if they don’t want it to look like Sandy, they are going to have to spend some money," hurricane expert Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado-Boulder told the Financial Times.

Not every disaster prevention is costly. For example, effective disaster planning paired with timely early warning and accurate weather forecasting based on satellite data limited the death toll and damage done by Sandy. However, to build an effective flood protection system in New York would be expensive and financing that scale of infrastructure investment is not easy. Yet, on the long run it would be worth it.