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.