This morning we had some rain in New York City. Yeah, it rained hard.
But the entire transit system basically failed.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/08/nyc.weather/index.html

3 Inches of rain. Moderate winds.

The great hurricane of 1938
http://www.geocities.com/hurricanene/hurr1938.htm
was a massive disaster, and at the time, the population of Long Island was much smaller.

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/38hurricane/hurricane_climatology.html

That's worth worrying about.

I don't remember ever hearing thunder that loud before. It was crazy, I was glad to be in bed & not outdoors during this storm.

Indeed, my normally 35 minute commute took over two hours this morning.

The real trouble to me was not the breakdown in the transit system. I am willing to be understanding of the fact that a 100 or so year old system will have failures under stress. The problem was the total lack of information available to help make informed decisions.

There was no way to know what was going on or how big a problem it was while actually on the trains. Transit workers gave no information, and police officers gave information that was wrong more often than not.

I saw at least one person collapse in the subway from the heat. Bystanders offered water and fanned her with whatever was available, while waiting for EMS.

All-in-all not our finest day in NYC. Makes me give more thought to how I'd get home in an emergency, and confirms that bugging out from NYC would be nearly impossible.

I am not surprised. Here in San Franciso, the light rail system slows to a crawl whenever it rains. It's never perfect, but it is even more frustrating to be waiting for (delayed) trains out in the rain . . .

Yeah - it was a joke, and the Pt Washington Branch of the LIRR went down again

NYC has NOT been maintaining it's infrastructure. The MTA says "we can only pump that the sewers can handle". One HUGE issue is that we keep letting people build up areas - but we DON'T upgrade the infrastructure

Last summer there was a 2 week long blackout in Northwestern Queens. They blame it on various things, but one of hte big issues is - if you rip down 1 family houses, and replace them with apartments for 6 families, you NEED more infrastructure (Look at Flushing Queens thank you)

The problem is the city, the utilities and the developers ALL don't want to upgrade the utlities - heck that costs MONEY - but the developers keep talking the city into taking lots zoned for a 1 family house, and rezoning for multi family

I know some of the city's hurricane plans (got to sit in on OEM meetings a couple of years back) - They are relying on things like public transit to clear the low lying areas in South Brooklyn and South Queens. Yeah right, as today, and the storm of 2 weeks ago prove

The NIGHTMARE scenario is called "The Hudson Bight" scenario - picture a storm as big as the storm of 1938, moving as FAST as the storm of 38 (which went from south of Florida to Long Island in less than 24 hours) but instead of the storm hitting basically in Suffolk, the EAST wall of the eye comes right up the Hudson River. You get maximum storm surge, the way the west wall hits land, the storm starts to break up right over NYC - so you get the most wind AND the most rain, NJ and Westchester get totally flooded, so there is NO way to get rescue supplies to NYC from the west until the flooding goes down (remember folks, except for The Bronx, all of NYC is on islands)

Folks - you think NO was bad? The whole city there was 600K people. Picture 1 MILLION homeless in NYC alone, plus major problems in NJ, the counties right above NYC, and a LOT more in Nassau and Suffolk

The ONE good thing - the NYC water supply does NOT require electric to work (unless you live above the 6th floor) - so we will almost definately have water, and MOST of the city will self drain when the storm surge ends

A BAD thing is it is estimated that NYC has no more than 72 hours of food anywhere in the city, at any time - aka not only the stores, but the werehouses

A good point is that rescue supplies can be brought in by ship/barge - the bad news is that it might be the only way to bring stuff in, and the Atlantic right after a major storm is probably NOT someplace you want to be

Minor quibble. 3 inches of rain in less than an hour, and while no hurricane, at least one tornado. But you're right, there are much larger storms in NYC's future this century, and this doesn't bode well.

Thanks for the enlightening links. My nephew is going to school there, and I keep telling him to occasionally pull his head out of the books and watch the news, especially the weather report.

I have often wondered about the NYC water supply in an emergency. I have always been under the impression that our water in gravity fed from the Catskills up to the sixth floor as well, but I don't know where I heard that. I know that the water has kept flowing through every power failure I can think of.

How secure do you think the NYC water supply is during a major natual disaster? I have not given much though to storing significant drinking water in my preps, as I do believe that our water supply is robust. Is this unwise?

Of course, it is unlikely that a hurricane would take me completely by surprise, so I guess I could fill containers as the storm approached, but that would require having containers handy. . .

"...I do believe that our water supply is robust..."

I don't live in NYC, thank God, but imagine an earthquake, or underground steam explosion like you had a short time back, taking out YOUR water line...

95% of the water that is delivered to NYC from the Catskill/Delaware Watershed and the Croton Watershed is gravity-fed, so that's a good thing. The Croton water system was built back in the 1800's! Mechanical breakdowns, power outages within NYC, and high fuel costs don't impact that part of the system as much as in other cities that require a lot of pumping.

I'm not sure if water mains pressure alone is enough to refill rooftop water tanks, though, without the assistance of pumps. So, during a longer power outage, if you lived on a higher floor that generally relies on rooftop water tanks to maintain adequate pressure within the building, you may eventually "run out of" water on the higher floors because the rooftop tank finally ran dry and the water main pressure alone is not enough to push water to your floor.

Then again, during Queen's extended power outage last summer, I don't recall reading any news stories about people in taller apartment buildings have their taps run dry on higher floors, so I could be wrong. Hmm, or maybe those buildings all had non-electric backup pumps?

The NYC Water Supply is a marvel of engineering. The history of thw water supply dates back to 1677. The Chase Manhattan Bank is, in a roundabout way, connected to the first public water supply system.

Today, the Catskills remain as the source of water for NYC.

http://nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/maplevels_wide.shtml

Fed by gravity, the system is capable of supplying billions of gallons of water every day.

That's the key, though. It's a gravity fed system.

So, that's why you see lots of these in NYC:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lintbrush/145275022/

Those tanks are used to deal with water supplies in buildings taller than about 6 stories, but in some places, they are needed for any water at all, because of the elevation of the terrain relative to the water supply.

In short, you should have water on hand. In an apartment, this is REALLY REALLY hard to do. One thing that I used to do when I lived in Manhattan in a tiny place on 25th street was to use plastic 2 liter seltzer bottles in the back of the closet. You can actually get some decent amounts of water in multple bottles.

Fortunately, those big steam lines are only in certain parts of Manhattan, for the skyscrapers. They wouldn't take out the main water tunnels. But as far as an earthquake, with close to 100 miles of tunnels extendig north to the Catskills, we would be hurtin'.

One lesson learned from yesterday's transit disruption, if you are bugging out of NYC, the only way you are getting out is on two wheels (bike or motorcycle) or on two legs. Maybe by boat, but first you have to get to the water.

Actually, I'm not sure that's totally true. I witnessed a burst steam main, very similar to the Grand Central one, up in the Upper East Side, and there are no skyscrapers in that immediate area. The steam cloud easily shot up above the surrounding brownstones and sounded just like a jet engine. I couldn't hear myself yelling and I was a couple blocks (short blocks, not the long avenue blocks) away. Anyway, I'm just saying that it's hard to know where there are and aren't steam mains.

I felt a tiny earthquake once in NYC. I recall that the epicenter was actually in the Upper East Side. We eat earthquakes here in California for breakfast, but in NYC, with all those really old unreinforced masonry buildings, a good 5.0 could bring a lot of buildings down. Despite regular inspections, you see buildings lose their brick facades from time to time, too. Imagine walking down the street on the sidewalk and all the buildings are shedding their brick facades down on your head during an earthquake!

Agreed. I've often felt that an inflatable / collapsable boat of some sort would be a good last-ditch effort tool to get out of the city and up to my in-laws place in the Catskills. Roll it down the hill to the Gowanus and start paddling. . .

I've come to the conclusion, however, that the most likely widespread natural disaster in NYC is a hurricane direct hit, and I would not want to be on the water if that was the case! Thus, most of my preps involve being ready to bug-in for a few weeks. Hence, my concerns about the water system.

I have plans for a more detailed post on urban/NYC centric preps. It seems like there's some interest, so I'll try and get to work on it.

You are probably right that a hurricane is the most likely natural disaster. The good thing about hurricanes is that we'll probably have plenty of warning in advance. I wouldn't want to be paddling up the Hudson in a rubber boat though. Nothing like the prospect of 200 mph winds less than 48 hours away to provide plenty of motivation though.

I for one would be very interested in your NYC centric prep ideas. I have a few ideas myself. Who knows, maybe with enough interest even an ETS NYC get together?

"...They wouldn't take out the main water tunnels..."

Water tunnels is a foreign term to me, so I assuming that is the big tube that brings lots of water into the city. But I also assume that there are smaller "pipes" bringing water into individual buildings, wouldn't those be vulnerable???

I would hope that they (the powers that be) have learned from NOLA's example and use this as an opportunity to identify the weakspots in their emergency preparedness system/infrastructure.

Politicians and bureaucrats being what they are, I wouldn't hold my breath.

YOYO (You're On You're Own).

That would be great and much appreciated!

Your assumption is correct. Probably should have explained it better. Three thirteen-foot wide tunnels bring water in from three separate watersheds and branch out to smaller water mains.

A steam explosion near water mains would undoubtedly take out sections of Manhattan's water supply. Maybe even pretty significant sections. But you wouldn't lose a whole borough. Those affected would have water available fairly close by.

I stand corrected. I just checked my references. Steam lines are all over Manhattan from the Battery up to about 96th Street. They aren't built in any regular grid system, so yeah, it would be really hard to know where they are. And they don't give any warning when they go. Many of the lines are the old, brittle cast iron pipes (insulated with asbestos no less).

IIRC, NYC is close to some significant fault lines . They aren't very active, but there is evidence of some pretty large quakes in the past. So it is just a matter of time.

Thanks for bringing this all up. Gives me something to think about on my way to work besides terrorist attacks and subway disasters.

OldBaldGuy:

Water tunnels is a foreign term to me, so I assuming that is the big tube that brings lots of water into the city. But I also assume that there are smaller "pipes" bringing water into individual buildings, wouldn't those be vulnerable???

Watch "Die Hard 3". These "tunnels" are big enough to put trucks through.

Document on City Water Tunnel #3 (PDF). Under Construction since 1970. Stage 1 complete in 1998. Final Stage 4, expected completion 2020.

Probably obvious, but this transportation nightmare affected all subway lines, LIRR and Metro North.

Die Hard 3 - IMDB Trivia Page Mentioned scenes filmed in City Tunnel #3

Just an observation: these tanks are on the roof and exposed to weather so it looks like they could easily be damaged and lose or limit the stored water?

My family has lived in College Point for about 80 years or so. Although I no longer live there myself, I did live there in the 1980's, after my parents divorced and we moved in with my grandparents for a time. I remember very well the two hour commute to high school at Stuyvesant HS in Manhattan.

I also remember very well the fun week we had in 1985 during Hurricane Gloria. The rest of my family was living in Ocean City, NJ at the time and were evacuated. Gloria was packing a serious punch and was at one point looking like she was going to head right into New York Harbor.

I was at home at 17 years of age with my late-80's great-grandmother while my grandparents were up in Lake Placid reliving their honeymoon. Not a fun situation to be in! Fortunately for New York City, Gloria turned east, ripped straight across Long Island and headed right up the Connecticut River. It tooks literally *years* for all the damage to be repaired.

I don't know what the current state of the subway system is, but I distinctly remember a huge story in the papers back then detailing the ages of various sections of track. Some of the tracks I regularly rode to school hadn't been replaced since they were originally laid in 1903. I'm sure some of the other infrastructre is that old, as well.

As far as fault lines are concerned, the Hudson River Fault is a major fault. I remember two earthquakes in the 1980's of 4.4 and 4.5 on the Richter Scale. Shook the hell out of the house. I also remember when the three giant oil storage tanks blew up in North Jersey. That shook the house, too. A bunch of the neighbors and I ran down to the park to see if a plane had crashed at La Guardia, but we found out about the explosion when we went home and heard the news on WINS.

If a major hurricane hit New York City, there would never be enough warning to evacuate in time. There's just too many people.

The water tunnels are DEEP. I mean REALLY DEEP. Like 675 Feet below the surface deep.

http://www.atlasmagazine.com/photo/sacha6/

There's a fault under 125th street.

There were a few building that did run out of water - I was doing comms for a Red Cross team that was sent out to distribute water. The thing is, byt the time we got there, the power was on

And yeah, below the 6th floor it's gravity feed. Worst comes to worst, go down to street level and get water.

An earthquake or a local disruption IS possible - which is why I DO store water here in NYC

That actually depends - for instance, up near the Ashokan, I USED to own property that was right next to the Aquaduct #2 tunnel - in that location, it's only a few feet down

The water supply system for NYC is composed of elements from various times dating back 150 years or more. In some areas, the tunnels are over 1,000 feet below the surface. In some areas, the pipelines are partially exposed on the surface. The water supply is now over 1.1 billion gallons per day to the greater metro area. There is a leak in one of the main tunnels that exceeds a million gallons per day. Plans are in the works to put together a redundant backup system and then take the old tunnel line out of service and seal the cracks. Also there are a number of water treatment processes planned to be installed in the system to ensure the quality of the water.

Fortunately, there's plenty of water in the drainages to meet demands. Those poor blokes in Brisbane are going to be drinking "Recycled" water soon. You should hear the rantings of the libs there about that!!!