The Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) runs from southern Brooklyn, New York to the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, New York. It is a portion of US Interstate 278. The highway is mainly elevated in Brooklyn, with some open-cut sections. In Queens, the highway is a mix of elevated, open-cut and at-grade sections. The BQE was built from the 1950s, and was completed in 1964 as a crowning achievement of Robert Moses, who still sparks debate today. The part that passes over the Gowanus Canal leading to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, as well as its southern extension to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, is known as the Gowanus Expressway. (Thompson, 2005)
If Tsunami hit at New York where Brooklyn Queens is located then it would hardly take 8-10 hours when the New York Harbor would be damaged, sending ships hurtling onto shore and flooding lower Manhattan and low-lying neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Staten Island. The sea would rush over the West Side Highway and the FDR Drive, taking cars with it. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of New Yorkers would drown in subway tunnels. In Queens, Kennedy and LaGuardia airports would be under water. Economic losses would be measured in the trillions. That's what could happen if, as some scientists fear, a fragile volcano known as Cumbre Vieja, a world away from New York in the Canary Islands, splits apart and crashes into the ocean. Cumbre Vieja is about 98% through its cycle, before it collapses. (Kates, 2005)
If the volcano erupts, Ward explained, the magma would heat water trapped inside. As the water expands, it will push off the unstable part of the volcano. It could be a piece of rock as large as 100 New York City blocks and a mile high Billions of tons of falling rock would hit the water at more than 200 mph...........
