Increased Chance for Major Hurricane in NE USA

Today on one of the news shows, a Weather Forecaster for Accuweather said the Atlantic Ocean is 12 degrees warmer then usual. This increase in temperature, created the conditions necessary for a major hurricane to hit the East Coast, especially around LI/New England. While he would not actually predict a major hurricane to hit this area, he did say it increased the chances.

Pete

Some in the science community are saying that we are in the spot of the hurricane cycle similar to the late 1930s, and that has more bearing than the controversial global warming theory.

With this topic in mind, how do hurricanes affect highrise buildings such as are found in NYC? Are all those windows made of glass or plastic? Visions of a huge torrent of large shards of glass falling from fifty stories up makes my stomach feel queasy.

Sue

That glass is very impressive. 4-6" thicks in most cases, IIRC. It apparently is used as part of the structure, so if it goes, there could be issues with the building in general.

I'm not as worried about a hurricane hitting NYC, as I am about one hitting Hong Kong, Taipei or Singapore. I know we have members in that part of the world- any idea if the new skyscrapers that have been built were modeled for very high winds.

NYC is NOT as safe as you think, unless you are just talking Manhattan, and even there, there are sections of the east and west sides that WILL flood. We will probably loose the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in anything major due to tidal surge. NYC's current OEM building will be under water even in a class 1 hurricane (yeah - dumb, and THEY know it - new building will be ready sometime this summer - that one is NOT in a flood zone) - Booklyn and Queens will have some serious issues (Then again - they fit on the 'long island' scenario) - there are major issues in the Bronx - think Co-op city - that floods in a bad cat 1

NYC OEM's Costal Storm web page is here

http://www.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/readynewyork/hazard_hurricane.html

Map of the flood zones here

http://www.nyc.gov/html/oem/pdf/hurricane_map_english.pdf


I'll be involved with at least 1 drill this spring, and I know that there is another that will involve Nassau county too

In a big cat III or a IV - NYC figures they have to evacuate 1.25 MILLION people - they figure 1 million of those will be able to get shelter on their own - they figure on having to shelter between 100k and 250k people!

Trust me - It would NOT be fun and joy - the big worry scenario is the NY Bight scenario - Oh, that would be NO fun - that involves a fast moving storm of say high Cat III to Cat IV, coming up the coast, where the eastern eye wall hits in NY Harbor at High tide. part of the real fun of this scenario is that the WESTERN eye wall hits shore a bit south of us in NJ - remember, that when the eyewall hits land, the storm starts to break up, and rainfall increases. NJ, and the NYC northern suburbs are VERY flash flood prone - flooding is fairly common (Hi Marty) - now we have a problem - Parts on PA, much of Northern NJ, Westchester, Rockland, Orange in NY, and parts of CT are ALL screaming for help due to flooding - Nassau, Western Suffolk, and NYC are seriously short handed. Eastern Suffolk is busy duing mutual aide to western suffolk. Where does the outside aide come from - and how do they get through the river valleys on NY/NJ/PA/CT to GET to NYC/Long Island?

Can you tell that I've spent a bit too much time gaming this?

Where would the plan say to stash 100K+ people? Are those "reception centers" large enough?

I know that if I was on Manhatten Island, I'd be hustling my butt off of there.

As I said in another post, I wouldn't be as concerned about the high rises. You mentioned the Battery tunnel- those are what I'm more interested in. Are any of the subway stations in the areas likely to flood? If so, is there a plan to contain flooding to them? Or would the entire system have to be pumped out?

I remember the flooded subways in the summer of...2000, was it? It was a typical partly sunny summer morning and I was just heading out the door to take the subway to work. A brief thunderstorm dumped a ton of rain on us, but it didn't seem extraordinary at the time. The heavy rain only lasted 15 or so minutes, as I recall, but it made a total mess of the Manhattan subway system that morning. Shut down all the lines that I might have used to go to work. Took me 3 hours to get to work (in hindsight, I could've just walked straight to work in an hour. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> ). Now, if the power also went out and snarled surface traffic, like buses, during that rush hour? Whew, forgeddaboutit!

Anyway, so if even 15 minutes of heavy rain can paralyze much of the subway system, think what hours or even days of heavy rain can do. I have read that there are pumps in the subway system operating continuously, since even under dry conditions, millions of gallons of water seeps into the sytem daily, but I doubt that they have much excess capacity. I don't think that flood water could ever rise fast enough to actually trap and drown riders in the tunnels before they could be evacuated, but the system can certainly be knocked out of commision very quickly by water.

I've never been in a subway, first of all. Avoided NYC when I was there.

I am just wondering, in any kind of flooded subway scenario, where do they pump the water TO, that it won't immediately run back in? Just idle curiosity...

Sue

I don't know exactly what NYC does for the subway, but I would assume that water in the tunnels (like from a brief downpour or a broken main) could be pumped into the storm drain system and flow out to someplace like the East River or the Hudson. Of course, if the cause of the flooding is because the rivers themselves are running so high that they're flowing back into the subway stations from the street--well, that's a huge disaster and there's nowhere to pump the water to in that case. Then we're getting into doomsday scenarios like kc2ixe was mentioning.

I'd like to see the building with 6" thick glass. That's some serious hardware! I've seen construction teams installing windows in several hi-rises both on TV and in person and I don't recall anything that substantial... not even close to that.

Was this building built to be bulletproof? The weight of that glass alone makes me question how the building is designed and loaded, so I'd like to see the design.

The glass used to sheath the outside of modern buildings is no where near 4" thick. All of the structural loads are carried by the building's steel frame. Each pane of glass has only to be strong enough to support it's own weight and the calculated wind loads plus a safety factor. Add to that the fact that most of the glass is ordinary annealed glass that shatters into large shards, not tempered or laminated (safety) glass. If you look of pictures of downtown New Orleans you will see that most of the glass was broken on the windward side of the buildings - either from the wind or from flying debris.

Watch out below!

JimJr

That has been my experience as well. I'm wondering if this was some bomb/bullet proof building like the CIA or Pentagon. I am aware of some installations using safety glass (at least on the observation deck) and particularly thick glass in some instances, but nothing like 4-6"

I remember one building (I think it was Saint Louis) where on the upper deck, the windows were installed at an angle, so one could lean over and look down. They were incredibly thick, shatterproof, and I was told that they could carry an extra 2000 pounds of weight should one of the observers accidentally fall past the VERY strongly built railing. Even that didn't look more than 2" thick, and the framework was pretty impressive as well.

IN that case, I remembered wrong. :P I seem to recall prefacing with IIRC, which I didn't. *shrugs*

Dang... I was kinda hoping you were talking about a specific building. I know they are doing some amazing things with glass these days like transparent solar power embedded within, as well as auto-darkening to keep the people inside from needing sunglasses, piping inbound light with fiber optics, etc. I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone was using glass that thick for protection. I know some government buildings are treated to prevent vibration from sound and to scatter laser and be not only bullet proof, but bomb proof, etc.

Too bad you didn't RC, I was looking forward to the info! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

How about the Superdome?!

Uhm... in New York City?

It was based in part on a paper that outlined the proper usage of .50 caliber precision rifles among urban law enforcement. One of the arguements for the use had to with the ability to penetrate the heavy glass in question. It was by John Plaster, so feel free to look for it online. In a few days, I'll be able to check my printed copy of the paper, I have it in storage.

Reception centers are just that - reception - that's where you get put on the bus for transport to the shelter - where do you stash 100K people for a couple of weeks? ALL OVER the place - Schools, Malls, Madison Square Garden, etc etc etc - I think the location list is over 200 long

The subways will probably go down - they did in the unnamed storm - the generator plant that makes the 25Hz power for the signals flooded

Bridges will have to close 2-4 hrs before landfall due to wind - remember, all of NYC except for The Bronx is on islands - what joy

The GOOD news is post the storm - we should be able to transport rescue stuff in by barge

The people here

http://www.whatifweather.com/

seem to thing a major NYC hurricane is likely.

Remember I was talking about "interesting"

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/24/nyregion/24evacuation.html

the title:
City Storm Evacuation Plan Is Unworkable, Report Says

BTW He's probably right - at least as of last years plans - I have not seen this years - NYC seems to be falling back into the old pattern of "We are the Pros, we don't need outside or volunteer help"