Has NO made you think what if... for NYC?

I remember some years back (early-mid 90's) we had that terrible rain storm and the water rose above level and all of downtown Manhattan was under water (from the River to Pearl Street) and so was the FDR. That was not even considered a hurricane - its scarry how badly we would be hit if it happened to be any worse.

I think all of the "What if..." New York stuff is simply panic and bullsh-t. News shows need to fill time and are filling that time with pushing buttons on primal fears with little logic behind it. Yes, natural disasters can hit anywhere. But in the case of New Orleans the whole city is 7 feet below sea level.

The New Orleans situation is bad enough. And I think we all know how media gossiping can whip everyone into a frenzy. If you're in NYC I would simply recommend counting your blessings and realize that as bad as the day to day life in this city can get, some others have it worse.

And as far as flooding in Lower Manhattan goes, in the great scheme of things that is no big deal. The area is far from residential. And you don't have virtual bungalow towns filled with the poor on the shores of Battery Park City.

I really think people should get a perspective. The dog poop avoiding, flasher dodging and iPod snatching issues are really the most we have to worry about. We really have it lots better here than we can imagine.

Subject: Re: 'the Big One'

pacific wrote: THE BIG ONE

Experts say it’s only a matter of time before a major hurricane strikes New York City. When it comes, you may want to have your evacuation plan nearby. If not, meet the fishes.
By Aaron Naparstek

http://www.nypress.com/18/29/news&columns/aaronnaparstek.cfm

I've always enjoyed the NY Press' columns and fiction. Well, I will say 'used to' since it's gone downhill in recent years. But their news coverage is abysmal at best. And in many ways comes off like a hipster/literary version of the New York Post nowadays.

Better chuck the NY Press and go out and take a walk and enjoy the fall day. Life's too complicated to panic about everything all the time.

Subject: jack

jack, the NY Press column by Naparstek seemed, uhm, pertinent to thet topic of this thread. posting it (and god forbid reading it) is not "panic."

jeeze.

Can I just post this link here? I can't help myself. Mr. Moore says it well:http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php[/url]

9-11 was tragic, but a physically small event. I was in Brooklyn during 9-11, and it shook me to the core, but it did not affect society in general.

In the case of New Orleans, the whole infrastructure of the city is gone. The poorest stayed behind. And beyond that, the Ninth Ward is one of the poorest places in the south. Built on swampland after the Civil War as a place for ex-slaves to live.

So what you have is poverty, lack of concern, incompetence on leadership and deep seeded racial issues.

Also in the case of 9-11, Giuliani was right there on the ground supporting and talking and dealing with things. In contrast, George W. Bush has really shown no human sympathy beyond robotic statements. Only left his Texas ranch after day 3 of this mess. And has still not personally done much of anything.

To put perspective on this, Dubya is the same genius who personally flew a plane to Iraq to land on an aircraft carrier and proclaim 'Mission Accomplished'. In contrast, he's only a few states away from this mess and too 3 days to leave his vacation to simply spit out rhetoric.

I can't justify people shooting at rescuers, but then again I have no idea how I would react to being in the middle of any of that hellscape.

1. the chances of the north atlantic EVER getting a category 4 hurricane are slim to none, hell the chances of us getting a weak category 2 are slim. the water is too cold up here, even in the dead of summer.

2. we have MUCH stricter gun laws here...when you keep guns out of the legal chain of commerce, you keep them out of the illegal chain of commerce by default.

3. we are above sea level.

4. you dont have the 40 er...no 80 bucks to get a tank of gas out of the city? take the metro north. its cheap...and chances are if something really serious was coming, they'd let you on for free or reduced rates. becuase thats the way new york rolls. they would take an initial hit in order to get people out if they knew some kickass once in a hundred years serious storm was coming.

5. building codes, building codes, building codes.

6. we've had some pretty kick ass disasters, and people looked out for each other, the unwritten rules of new york etiquette and empathy kept us from reverting to a lord of the flies scenario. new yorkers value efficiency and civilization, and each other.

7. we not only have pretty decent infrastructure, but we have social services, city wide and state wide agencies that are equipped and do kick into gear when shit goes down...its why we pay all those "high" taxes that the rest of the country seems to find a repugnant idea and contrary to whatever new-hampshire-ass ideas of "freedom" they have.

8. and while we have some poor, POOR people here, the level of poverty here doesn't even approach the third world level of impoverishment you find on the gulf coast. when i was down there i was absolutely mortified at the complete dereliction in which some people lived...

9.these cities also didn't spend nearly enough on municipal police services, and in some cities, like memphis, business hired private seurity guards to patrol the streets because there weren't nearly enough cops for the level of criminals.

10. unfortunately, it all comes down to infrastructure. we pay much higher taxes, so we have the services, physical structures, and social and political leadership and agencies to weather a catastrophe. you don't really notice it when things go well, but when things go wrong, hideously wrong, and then we get surprised when people pull together and it all stays together somehow.


it is utterly INFURIATING that the entire gulf coast region is completely being hung out to dry here. its INFURIATING that celebrities can be bothered to risk their well being to go into that city to provide moral support, but the people who are ELECTED to do that job either stay away or "fly over" to view the destruction from an abstract and safe distance. what happened to the captain going down with the ship? there were studies years ago that predicted just this sort of disaster..and when they knew there was a category 5 then 4 headed straight for new orleans...what did they do? they didn't do ANYTHING but tell people to leave...but when you exist at subsistence level, like so many in new orleans...where and how do you go? so they let them suffer and die. its a sin of omission.

i seriously hope this causes america to reconsider its tax, social and infrastructure policies. not to mention its energy policies and sources. this will have impacts that will dwarf 9/11. but it won't make a shits worth of difference in the way we conduct things here. we are a people who forget our history, and are therefore doomed to repeat it, and we cut corners in any way we can, this is all veneered in a shell of stupid optimism varnished to a high gloss sheen with rose colored shellac.

i have never been so ahsamed of my country until this week. and there's nothing i can do but give money, and it seems so lax.

no you're right. there are guns here, plenty of them. but its not like everyone has one or two in their homes. it just surprised me just how prevalent gun ownership is down there when i visited some friends, and EVERYsingle one of them had firearms in their apartments. the gun violence in new orleans was at seriously problematic levels way before the hurricane. i don't know how people tolerated it.

t-fal wrote: no you're right. there are guns here, plenty of them. but its not like everyone has one or two in their homes. it just surprised me just how prevalent gun ownership is down there when i visited some friends, and EVERYsingle one of them had firearms in their apartments. the gun violence in new orleans was at seriously problematic levels way before the hurricane. i don't know how people tolerated it.

I grew up in southern Virginia with friends whose parents owned tens of guns and in one case hundreds of guns. Even as a kid, it boggled my mind. We were deer hunters and no matter how you cut it, you only have two hands. Anyhow, the 'hundreds of guns' family had a father who, to this day, will tell you he needs that many guns so he can arm himself and all the other whites when the 'Jew uses the Black to exterminate White Christians.' (There was one Jewish family in our town). Until the late 80s, when I was in high school, the Klan had a table at career day!

No offense to NYers, you just don't understand that there are enormous swaths of this country that are full of people who believe shit like that. They are indoctrinated with it at work, at home and at church. I played Church league softball and the biggest grudge match of the year was always the First Baptist Church versus the AME. The Sheriff's Dept would send extra police to a church league softball game. I played for the Catholic Church and the Baptists wouldn't even join the priest in saying a prayer before the game. Catholics worship the Devil, y'know.

Trust me, when they see the 'looting' they don't see people trying to survive, they see their justification for killing every single last one of them. It scares the shit out of me. Our move to Brooklyn was, in part, precipitated by a desire to keep our kids out of that culture. Now I don't imagine that it is perfect here, but there are just so many more possibilities.

6. we've had some pretty kick ass disasters, and people looked out for each other, the unwritten rules of new york etiquette and empathy kept us from reverting to a lord of the flies scenario. new yorkers value efficiency and civilization, and each other.

As someone from Louisiana, I agree with what T-fal has stated except the previous quote. Firstly the term "civilization" in a context such as this is inappropriate as it is laden with racist connotations (I'm not accusing T-fal, just saying the word itself as used within the context of the history of science, particularly the hierarchizing of social stance, intelligence and morality using sex, race, and class--see The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould, as well as the Bush agenda and a general history in the West of colonizing the 'uncivilized'.) Also, while some shown on the news are showing some lack of etiquette and empathy, I doubt we are getting the entire story. The south, particularly N.O. is known for hospitality and after days without food, water, airconditioning, a restroom, I don't know how anyone, New Yorker or not, would react.

Agreed in every respect, Jack. Well put!

JamesonVandy wrote: Here's a question: does anyone think a Kerry administration would have noticed that FEMA had deteriorated and/or funded New Orleans reengineering in time to have a different outcome than we saw this week? It occurs to me that this event could have sunk his administration. Discuss.

I think Kerry would have had to deal with the mess George W. Bush woudl have left behind--and is still leaving behind--and it would have been a serious blow to him because he would really not have much to fall-back on. I think of it like Jimmy Carter having to deal with the mess of the Nixon/Ford administration. He wasn't the cause but he got the blame.

That said, this is clearly proving to be a tremendous blow to the Bush administration. They could not be handling this any worse. I mean the Governor of Louisiana has threatened to physically punch him--or anyone--who lays blame on local government for this mess.

But how will it affect Bush is questionable. He's only started his second term. So unless something dramatic happens we have 3 more years of this nonsense.

Has NO made me think "what if..." for NYC?

Nope.

but it has made me even more aware than usual how the endless fearmongering on the news can freak people out to illogical extremes.

It's never bad to be prepared.

My Y2K stockpile came in really handy for the blackout !