New York Under Water

The city has released a new hurricane evacuation plan (NY Daily News: “‘Cane & able plan”), so that we don’t all die when a category 5 hits the city. Since we still haven’t packed a “go bag”, we’re probably less prepared than we have been in any other house. If there is an evacuation, the dog will be allowed on the subway (muzzled), but given how hard it is to get off this island in normal circumstances, I can’t even imagine what an evacuation would look like. I guess the deal is to get going as early as possible, and get as far out of town as possible.

Given that we are up on a hill, rising sea levels, and even a pretty serious storm surge, are unlikely to flood us. Try playing with this map if you want to find out if you are in the same boat, so to speak.



  1. Posted 6/29/2006 at 11:50 am | Permalink

    but it will probably cut off your access to drinking water and electricity for a period of time…. how long will that be?

  2. Posted 6/29/2006 at 12:28 pm | Permalink

    Yeah, would evacuate if a mandatory evacuation was called. The high ground might protect our stuff a bit longer, and make it easier for looters to get to it :).

    Otherwise, stockpiling water isn’t that hard, and unlike New Orleans, once the storm has blown through, the surge would quickly recede. We are at a couple hundred feet asl, I think, so it’s unlikely we would see any real flooding–but we would be cut off for a while.

    Water would come back fast–one thing this city doesn’t have a problem with–but given the dent the subway strike had on things like food delivery (since they had a daytime driving ban), I suspect it would take a lot longer for staples to start flowing back in.

  3. Posted 7/4/2006 at 6:09 am | Permalink

    You’ve lived in japan. My buddy in Tokyo who has been there 20 years, has 5 survival packs. One under each of their beds for the worst. 2 small packs in the room, and one large. They change the food every 6 months. I would assume that having a 0.1 micron ceramic water filter would help too.

  4. Posted 7/4/2006 at 10:30 am | Permalink

    Yeah, Buffalo made me complacent. We had to have a few days supplies in case of getting snowed in, but it’s a different mentality. Most of the rest of my life I’ve lived along the Pacific Rim, so was always aware of the potential for earthquakes, and had a go-bag, swapped out water and food every few months, etc.

    In Japan, we were also in a tsunami plain and storm surge area for typhoons. So, we basically had to be prepared to leave our abode if any lesser deity sneezed too loud. Hey, and we missed the subway gassings in Tokyo (Aum Shinrikyo sarin attacks) by about four hours. So we should be disaster-ready, but we’re not.

    Jamie and I actually worked at schools on either side of the outlet of the Sagawa river. They told us that if there were ever a large tsunami (and eventually there would be), we and all the kids would basically be wiped out, since by the time we got the alarm, there wouldn’t be time for a proper evacuation. That always adds to a good educational environment, I think.

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