This astute overview of the issues pending in the aftermath of H. Sandy.  Vetoing Business as Usual After the Storm. NYT, Nov. 20. It gives you a good idea of why achieving an effective and visionary  recovery is so hard after a major natural disaster.  Quotes from the opening paragraphs:

Not a month after Hurricane Sandy there’s a rough consensus about how to respond. America is already looking to places like London, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Tokyo, where sea walls, levees and wetlands, flood plains and floating city blocks have been conceived.

New York clearly ought to have taken certain steps a while back, no-brainers after the fact. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority ought to have installed floodgates and louvers at vulnerable subway entrances and vents. Consolidated Edison should have gotten its transformers, and Verizon its switching stations, out of harm’s way, and Congress should have ordered the Army Corps…