Ready or not, Northeast ripe for big hurricane

JFK airport site was hit in 1893
And then there’s New York City. The 1938 hurricane delivered only a glancing blow to the Big Apple, buffeting the Empire State Building with gusts up to 120 mph but barely dimming the lights on Broadway, where shows went on as scheduled.

But in 1893 a hurricane came ashore in Jamaica Bay, near where JFK airport sits today. A cluster of saloons, casinos and resort hotels on a sandy spit of land called Hog Island was completely washed away. Even the island disappeared.

A few miles west of the hurricane’s eye, almost every building on Coney Island was destroyed. There was extensive flooding in Brooklyn and wind damage to many of the city’s innovative new skyscrapers, including the just-finished Metropolitan Life building.

Meteorologists estimate that the 1893 storm was only a category 2 hurricane.

“A 2 in New York City is bad news,” Coch said. “A 3 is a disaster and a 4 is a catastrophe.”

Coch earned the nickname “Dr. Doom” more than a decade ago for his insistent warnings about New York City’s vulnerability to hurricanes. He envisions hurricane-force winds stripping glass, antennas, air conditioning units and water tanks off tall buildings and sending them crashing into the streets. People trying to escape the bombardment by retreating into the subway would soon find the tunnels flooded.

NYC: We'll be ready
City officials say they expect nothing so apocalyptic. Having witnessed the fate of New Orleans, they are rewriting the city’s already comprehensive hurricane plan and expect to have it ready by Aug. 1, the first day of hurricane season in the Northeast.

“New York is a town unique in its ability to respond to these kinds of events,” said Kelly McKinney, deputy commissioner of the New York City Office of Emergency Management. “Because it is so densely populated it’s got the infrastructure to respond.”

Sure, the low-lying southern end of Manhattan could be submerged as far north as Canal Street. The Holland Tunnel and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel could fill with water. Outside Manhattan, huge swaths of Brooklyn and Queens, including the sites of the city’s two airports, could flood in a major hurricane.

But New York won’t have to be pumped dry, the way New Orleans was after Hurricane Katrina. New York is above sea level — the water will come, and it will drain away.

“We’re not evacuating New York City in any way,” said Joseph Bruno, commissioner of the city’s department of emergency management.

In a worst-case scenario, emergency managers expect 2 million of New York City’s 8 million residents will have to leave their homes. City officials plan to suggest that people in low-lying areas leave their homes 96 hours ahead of a potentially dangerous hurricane.

But because New Yorkers have a tendency to look out for No. 1, emergency planners expect a million people who don’t really need to go anywhere will make for the bridges and tunnels just because they can.

“It could get very ugly,” said Frank Lepore, a spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

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