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!!!