Well, they used to call him Dr. Doom.

Now they call him quite often.

It's funnier when Nicholas K. Coch, professor of geology atQueens College in New York and “forensic hurricanologist,” tellsit.

With a booming voice and a sense of humor, Coch has beentrying to tell New Yorkers for decades they live in the mostdangerous place in the world for storm surge.

He told attendees of Advisen's Property Insights Conference lastyear. In all honesty, there was likely an even mix of audiencemembers laughing at him as there were withhim.

This year, Advisen was kind enough to invite Coch back.

He didn't gloat. He didn't need to.

Everyone this year now knows Coch has been right all along—thathe is indeed no Chicken Little—thanks to Superstorm Sandy, which inOctober 2012 fulfilled Coch's prophecy that New York would someday be home to the world's longest aquarium—itssubway system.

The affirmation of Coch's theories based on decades of studydoesn't mean the “Master of Disaster” has packed it in. Oh no—quitethe opposite. The professor doesn't stop to gloat because there isno time to.

Sandy was “not the big one,” he said from a stool in front ofhis famous slideshow presentation complete with homemade graphicsand manipulated photographs.

“The big one is yet to come—and we're overdue,” hecontinued.

And the storm category has no bearing. If Sandy—not evenclassified a hurricane—made landfall 100 miles north of where itdid, “New York City could have been wiped out,” said the lifelongNew Yorker.

Coch said storm surge was just one of the destructive aspects ofSandy. The professor says meteorologists would better serveresidents by predicting the height of wind-driven waves on top ofsurge.

Some residents in the path of Sandy might have thought they weresafe after listening to storm surge predictions. “That's why theydied on Staten Island,” he softened and said.

Debris and the force of wind in between the city's tallbuildings were major destructive factors during Sandy, and will beamplified when a stronger storm strikes. Wind pressure isintensified when it's squeezed.

But what might be most striking were Coch's thoughts aboutinland flooding. The phrase wasn't uttered post-Sandy but Coch saysit played a major role in flooding from the “freak” storm.

Manhattan was built upon a series of rivers shown in early maps,he showed. The water is still there somewhere, he said, andtopography of the upper East Coast increases the chances offresh-water flooding from rivers and off mountains.

Water comes in from the ocean, and down off the mountains.

“You can't understand Sandy without fresh water flooding,” Cochsaid.

But what really makes New York so dangerous is the right anglesformed by Long Island. The water will need a place to go, and itcan only move west, into the city, with its low-lyinginfrastructure, utilities, hospitals and airports.

Coch says rebuilding at higher elevation is an exercise infutility unless we build way up—WAY up. Home rebuild on 8-footstilts may last a generation but their time will also come,considering the erratic changes in weather and rising sea levels.(the only way you can deny climate change is if you can't reada thermometer, he added).

“We shouldn't elevate; we should abandon,” he said. “Theshoreline is retreating. We should too.”