Texas survives hurricane but New York may be next

[emad]

Texas survives hurricane but New York may be next
By Rupert Cornwell in Houston and Geoffrey Lean in London
Published: 25 September 2005

Texas breathed a sigh of relief as Hurricane Rita avoided the deserted city of Houston yesterday, but scientists now say the next target for a hurricane could be New York.

Officials there are taking the threat so seriously that they have drawn up a mass evacuation plan and have begun a poster campaign.

The National Hurricane Centre rates New York as the fifth most vulnerable area in the country. The top four have all been hit in the past two years. Max Mayfield, the centre's director, says the city is "especially vulnerable". Local experts believe flooding, as was shown in the movie The Day After Tomorrow, is "inevitable".

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article314999.ece

[readmylips]

1. Yeah! Los Angeles earthquake is coming....

The wall-to-wall traffic in Texas during the evacuation of Rita is an every day occurance in Los Angeles. You got to be super nuts or super stupid to live in Los Angeles.

My family finally moved out of California, after 40 years. Now that they live in a city that they can get up to go to work at a reasonable time, instead of 4 o'clock in the morning, and get home at a reasonable time to have dinner with their family, they are a much better family. Their stress is gone and even have more money for what's important for their families.

[AlGore-08.com]

3. Wow. When your family was here, did you happen to notice our homeless?

Or our working poor, who make minimum wage but still have to to (somehow) find a place to live in a city were it's not uncommon for studio apartments to cost $1,000 a month? A city which, for the most part, has no public transportation?

Just for giggles, I went over to salary.com's cost of living wizard, to see if a person making minimum wage would see any change in disposable income if they moved from LA to another part of the country. I couldn't find a single location where minimum wage gets you more disposable income than minimum wage gets you in LA.

Of course, the cost of living wizard doesn't factor in government programs for the working poor. Would moving from LA to an area with less free public health care really the quality of living for a working poor family? Would it really improve the quality of life to move to an area where there is a higher standard of living, but a less tolerant culture? I have a number of upper-middle class friends who have bi-racial families: one spouse is Caucasian, the other African-American. Any time the subject of moving comes up, they are very, very aware of which major cities they feel are unsafe for them and their children to live in. (One of them moved to West Virginia and got hassled by the KKK.)

Just how are folks who make minimum wage supposed to find enough money to pack up and move to a different city? Especially if they have family out here that they'd never see again if they moved, because no disposable income means you don't have $300 - $1500 to fly or drive or take the greyhound back to LA for a visit (assuming your minimum wage job would even let you off long enough to take a bus from Georgia to LA and back again - - or that your second or third hand ancient car could survive the trip).

And F.Y.I. I moved out here in 1992, during the depth of the first Bush admin's recession. I moved out here because where my parents lived - - a wonderful small town in upstate New York - - there were no jobs at all. There was a two year waiting list just to apply at the local McDonalds. Out here in SoCal, there were jobs. Not many, but there were some. (That was also true during the Great Depression, when many folks from the Midwest migrated out here, looking for work... )

[readmoreoften]

5. studio apartments that cost $1000 a month. Ha Ha Ha!

Hard to find a studio here (in Manhattan) under 1.8K a month--except maybe outer Brooklyn, where you might as well commute from South Jersey.

[mcscajun]

2. NYC does have a hurricane history...

This is just a partial history from the NYC Office of Emergency Management website:

NYC Hurricane History

1821 HURRICANE
Reaching the City on September 3, 1821, the storm was one of the only hurricanes believed to have passed directly over parts of modern New York City. The tide rose 13 feet in one hour and inundated wharves, causing the East River to converge into the Hudson River across lower Manhattan as far north as Canal Street. However, few deaths were attributed to the storm because flooding was concentrated in neighborhoods with far fewer homes than exist today.

1938 HURRICANE
The most powerful hurricane known to have made landfall nearby — a category 3 hurricane — occurred in 1938. Its eye crossed over Long Island and into New England, killing nearly 200 people.
The storm killed 10 people in New York City and caused millions of dollars in damage. Its floods knocked out electrical power in all areas above 59th Street in Manhattan and in all of the Bronx, the new IND subway line lost power, and 100 large trees in Central Park were destroyed.

(snip)

AGNES
In June 1972, Tropical Storm Agnes fused with another storm system in the northeastern U.S., flooding areas from North Carolina to New York State, causing 122 deaths and more than $6 billion dollars in damage (when adjusted for inflation).

More at the link:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/readynewyork/hazard_hurricane_history.html

[Javaman]

4. Being from Long Island and knowing the L.I.E...

The best course would be to pass out inflatable boats. You think Houston had traffic gridlock? That's nothing compared to Long Island.

[pitohui]

6. that's what they said on discover channel

they said the costs of a little ol cat 2 on manhattan would dwarf the human & financial costs of katrina

a cat 2?

that is sure to happen soooner or later, they need more than an evacuation plan, we must find some way to turn these storms aside

what that would be, i haven't a clue, but if we can send a man to the moon, why can't we send dick cheney...er, why can't we change the weather?

either that or they need a hell of a sea wall

new jersey needs it bad too, what happened to the miss. gulf coast could happen to them tripled!

[readmoreoften]

12. Why would we need to evacuate for a cat 2?

I think that the homeless would need to be put into shelters. Other than this, a Cat 2 harms trailers, vegetation and tear shingles off roofs. Most buildings in NYC are made of stone and brick. I can see flood damage near the rivers. Maybe a heap of insurance claims. Maybe even a dangerous power outage. But mass evacuation in NYC for a cat. 2 seems overstated to me.

[Rainscents]

7. I wonder if they're talking "Phillip"? He is still out there and not

moving much, just sitting and spinning.

[globalvillage]

8. I think Philippe is dying.

...PHILIPPE DISSIPATES...

SATELLITE IMAGES INDICATE THAT THE CIRCULATION OF PHILIPPE IS
BECOMING ABSORBED WITHIN A BROADER NON-TROPICAL AREA OF LOW
PRESSURE.

AT 11 PM EDT...0300Z...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL DEPRESSION PHILIPPE
WAS DISSIPATING NEAR LATITUDE 29.0 NORTH... LONGITUDE 64.0 WEST OR
ABOUT 235 MILES... 375 KM... SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF BERMUDA.

THE DEPRESSION IS MOVING TOWARD THE SOUTH-SOUTHEAST NEAR 9 MPH
...15 KM/HR. THE REMNANTS ARE EXPECTED TO MEANDER AS THEY CONTINUE
TO DISSIPATE.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPAT2+shtml/DDHHMM.shtml

[Rainscents]

9. Thanks for information!

[smirkymonkey]

10. However, New York is heavily serviced by public transportation

accessible to all. Very few people have cars in the city - most are commuters from outside Manhattan. As long as there is enough of a warning, most people should be able to evacuate.

[Mend]

11. I remember Hurricane Carol in 1954...

I was a young kid and thought it was awesome to cook in the fireplace for the three days we had no power. Our house was well-built and we were never in any danger that I know of....maybe that's why, after over 25 years on the coast of Florida, we stay calm and stay home through all the storms. I know how terribly hard it would be for people who live on the streets, in subways, just as it is so hard for people here who live in mobile homes.