In Denver? How about drowning from all these crazy thunderstorms? LOL

Except for an occasional funnel cloud appearing or getting caught in a downpour, not much else to worry about here. Any crisis is likely to be too immediate and too catastrophic to realisitically respond to, like the Caldera popping or some such. Not much potential here for anything else. In the winter you might have some problems if the snows hit the back slope just right, but you have good heads up for that and can prepare well.

These daily thunderstorms do remind me of Florida, though. I would be glad for a different (drier) weather pattern for a while.

Trust me, something can ALWAYS be more damaged.
-Blast

p.s. Though I'll admit with Cleveland it'd be a challenge...

In Austin TX the most likely problem is flooding, and people who don't believe just how high the water can get. I always show newcomers the picture of the lower field at my weekend cabin NW of town - the pic that shows the lower field flooded - the field that is SIXTY (60) feet above the river.

In Houston, where I used to live on the coast, hurricanes were the obvious problem, with people overreacting to small category 1 or 2 storms, or underreacting to bigger storms.

And newcomers: a cousin visiting Saturday commented that he'd been in NYC during a hurricane and "it's like a big thunderstorm!" Um, no.

If I may comment Canoedogs, the relatively smooth Minnesota Bridge response was actually the result of a fair amount of interagency training for a response to an undefined mass casualty event, exactly the kind of preparedness that local authorities seldom get the credit for. I read about the effort last year: local authorities had drilled for mass casualty events in the preceding years, found holes in their expected response, and made it better, so that when the 35W bridge fell down they had a much more predictable response to it. Victims found their way to hospitals incredibly fast by general standards. I am sure that folks jumped in to help, but fwiw I'm happier still if the responders include trained EMTs with stretchers and the wherewithal to hoist victims back up onto the freeway, rapidly.

Now hopefully this is where someone jumps in with the comment, well, MB wasn't as smooth as all that, I'm overestimating the response effort or its success. Maybe so, but I'd rather give credit for what was there than pick apart their exact response. Watching it on TV it was evident they knew what to do.

Yeah. That's the one you typically see in disaster management training materials when they want to induce headaches and nightmares, along with SF or LA "9.0". (we used to also see "New Orleans Cat. 5") It's not going to be pleasant.

BTW, the people of NYC showed impressive spirit and resilience, your emergency services folks were great to work with, and everyone treated us genuine kindness and appreciation when we were up there after 9/11. It was the only bright spot on an otherwise bleak deployment.

How would one (like say myself) get a copy of my city or regions OEM evac plans? It seems like some of you have them from your area.

Access to such planning documents are subject to your state's specific public records laws, and are sometimes unavailable to the general public. Contact your local/regional/county emergency management agency, and see what information is available. Don't take the first "no" answer you get as definitive; try going through the different agencies that may be involved.

I know NYC is constantly revising them, and a lot of the details are "need to know" or are constantly in flux - who do they have hotel contracts with this week/month

As I said, I got to see some of it, and hear some of it, sue to being invited to an OEM meeting, as I was working with the Red Cross at the time via ARES

I will tell you that they have plans for up to 500 (yes 500) shelters in NYC - MANY will be in school buildings, which tend to to have some huge advantages when used as a shelter (for instance - many fairly large rooms than can be closed, well build (NYC schools tend to be brick/block/concrete) have cafeterias, and most important - many bathrooms!, plus schools will tend to be closed in disasters anyway

I do know that in the NY Bight scenario, they intend to shut the subways/buses from "normal" service, and run them as pure evacuation services. Of the 2.3 Million people they have to move in a Cat III, they are hoping/planning that approximately 1 millon of those will find their own shelter with friends/family/out of area.

Hint - it won't be pretty - they KNOW they don't have enough staff in that situation - not even close, so they are hoping for voluntiers from the residents.

The District of Columbia has critical information online, such as the very consequential fact that no one will be allowed to cross Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol Building and Rock Creek Park. That could be very disconcerting to Virginians who work downtown.

I'm impressed that in this basic document they also stress the use of area bike paths (for bikes and walking, not cars).

http://ddot.dc.gov/ddot/frames.asp?doc=/ddot/lib/ddot/information/pdf/brochure_emergencytips.pdf

D'Oh!!!! Thanks for the correction. I always take the Whitestone.