In a message dated 9/3/06 12:00:56 AM, Phil writes: > I think there's a lot of people with too much time and grant money on their > hands. Clearly, anomalies like "the perfect storm" happen along with the > asteroid, earthquake and volcano movies, but the issue is how much time, > technology, people, and capital should we spent trying to mitigate risks > that are possible, but not probable. > > A major hurricane with winds of 110 kts. or greater makes landfall in the New York area about once every ten years. This is about a third as likely as New Orleans. Experts now believe that after Miami and New Orleans, New York City is considered the most dangerous major city for the next hurricane disaster. According to a 1990 study by the US Army Corps of Engineers, the city has some unique and potentially lethal features. New York is essentially an island city. Only one borough is on the mainland. Land shortages encourage high density housing to be built inappropriately close to the water. New York's major bridges such as the Verrazano Narrows and the George Washington are so high that they would experience hurricane force winds well before those winds were felt at sea-level locations. These escape routes would have to be closed well before ground-level bridges (Time, 1998). The two ferry services across the Long Island Sound would also be shut down 6-12 hours before the storm surge invaded the waters around Long Island, further decreasing the potential for evacuation. A storm surge prediction program used by forecasters called SLOSH (Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge from Hurricanes) has predicted that in a category 4 hurricane, John F. Kennedy International Airport would be under 20 feet of water and sea water would pour through the Holland and Brooklyn-Battery tunnels and into the city's subways throughout lower Manhattan. Most of Staten Island with its mean height above sea level of four feet would be inundated. Fire Island and the Brooklyn shoreline would be severely damaged, as would coastal communities along the Jersey Shore, Long Island Sound and the lower Hudson River. The report did not estimate casualties, but did state that storms "that would present low to moderate hazards in other regions of the country could result in heavy loss of life" in the New York City area. If it was almost impossible to evacuate the half million people from New Orleans, even with three days warning and the universal expectation that any breach in the levees would cause major flooding, imagine how tough it would be to get eight million blase New Yorkers, most of whom do not own cars, to head for the hinterlands of upstate New York. No asteroid impact is necessary for disaster. While an evacuation plan has been widely circulated in case of a Three Mile Island type incident at the Indian Point Atomic Energy plant 40 miles up the Hudson River from NYC, to the best of my knowledge no plan has ever been proposed for the far more likely possibility of a Cat. 3, 4, or 5 hurricane hitting Gotham. It is sunny today after yesterday's brush with Ernesto. Larry Z

> -----Original Message----- > ....................... Most of Staten Island with > its mean height above sea level of four feet would be inundated. Larry, Someone was been pulling your leg with that 'information'. Staten Island most certainly does not have a mean height of 4' above MSL. Take a look at the topo charts that are online on MapTech (see: http://tinyurl.com/n9p2x), and you will see that very few areas of the island are lower than 20', and the average height of Staten Island is very considerably higher than that. Kevin