9.4.19 - New facility at UAlbany will study climate change, disaster response
'A thousand miles from Hurricane Dorian's storm surge on Tuesday, SUNY Chancellor Kristina Johnson surveyed progress on the construction of a $180 million project at the Harriman state office campus, near the University at Albany. The facility is designed to become a center for research into weather patterns, sustainability, and disaster response — issues that were very much in the news on the day of Johnson's visit, as residents of the Bahamas began to recover from Dorian's wrath and the southeastern United States prepared for the worst.'
'The 225,000-square-foot facility will be the home to the University at Albany's College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity, the university's Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences and the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center. The New York State Mesonet, the state's weather detection system created with FEMA funds following Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and completed in 2018, will also move to the site.'
'It will house more than 200 full-time faculty and researchers, 100 research and industry partners and as many as 800 students. The complex has been under construction on the southwest corner of the Harriman campus since the spring of 2018 and is expected to be completed by mid-2021.'