Differences in Preparedness City By City

I work in New York City, in a part of Manhattan called "Chelsea" - it's about a mile south of Times Square, in the center of the island.

I can honestly say that, despite the attacks of 9/11, I feel safer in NYC that I do in Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, London, Helsinki, Dallas, New Orleans, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Nicosia or any of the many other places I've been and worked since 9/11.

Why? Because I think that New York now has it's act together when it comes to emergency preparedness. I think that they do a good job of communicating and I think that as a city, New York is more "ready for anything" than most places.

A lot of it comes from having a LOT of money here, but some of it is just a certain attitude.

So...what do you think of the city/urban area where you live or work?

Where I live(and work for that matter) most people are pretty prepared to go a week or more w/out any outside assistance. Getting snowed in or not having power for a week and living at least 20 minutes from a store or gas station makes most people think ahead. I also know there are those who don't prepare because they could care less or they can't afford it...

Overall, I think living further away from a big city makes more people be prepared by the nature of their surroundings.

The last major disaster in my city was when the railway bridge collapsed during a winter storm. It gave rise to some pretty dreadful poetry by William Topaz McGonagall. Otherwise nothing really has happened since then.

The Tay Bridge Disaster

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem'd to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem'd to say-
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay."

When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers' hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say-
"I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay."

But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

So the train sped on with all its might,
And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sight,
And the passengers' hearts felt light,
Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year,
With their friends at home they lov'd most dear,
And wish them all a happy New Year.

So the train mov'd slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o'er the town,
Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill'd all the peoples hearts with sorrow,
And made them for to turn pale,
Because none of the passengers were sav'd to tell the tale
How the disaster happen'd on the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

Interesting topic and I look forward to what others consider in responding.

I live in eastern Iowa and based on how the area around here handles our usual run ins with mother nature (tornados, blizzards, flood -especially last years), I would say we will do pretty well. Our services (police, fire etc.) are pretty good, people are pretty self sufficient and generally prepared but most importantly we have a lot of intangibles that roll up into a general will to overcome adversity. There have been way too many examples of communities coming together in trying times over the last year but it sure feels good to know that we can and have pulled together when it matters.

- Eric

Like Martin, I'm in NYC.

NYC sort of has their act together, and in general has for a long time. There may be "issues" getting a scene setup, but a lot of that is infighting. In the SHORT term (say less than 24 hours), it's very possible for the NYC pros to get overwhelmed by shear numbers (where else do you have to move a million people to get them home, even without an evacuation?)

Anyway, one interesting thing I've learned in living NYC my entire life, is that when the going gets tough, NYers, rough as our reputation, tend to band together to help one another. Someone will step up and try to direct traffic for a little while. Someone else will open a hose bib, or a fire hydrant so people can get water. During the 03 blackout, I don't thing I saw a car/truck moving that wasn't totally loaded with people trying to leave the city

Generally, within 12 hours or so, the city will have it's act together - The Red Cross and Salvation Army will be trying to do what they can (Hint, they rarely open shelters here - they use hotels!), information hotlines will be setup (I don't like Mayor Bloomberg, but 311 was a great idea)

That said, NYC disaster service are VERY Manhattan Centric (Just like all city services), with Downtown Brooklyn #2, and then it's a steep fall off after that - Most of Staten Island and Eastern Queens are on their own until the rest of the city is taken care of

Phoenix would fall apart. I think because most people here came from somewhere else, if that makes since. As such they have little commitment to staying if they have/had to. Heck it hits 110 degrees and the weathermen are telling people to go to San Diego. Phoenicians are ingrained to get the heck outta dodge and that makes a big mess.

Of course there is 5 million people in the Valley of the Sun, so my point is generalized, tens of thousands if not more are well prepared for anything.

I suppose the positive to a disaster happening here is that the city is an urban sprawl masterpiece. There is CVS, Walgreens, grocery store, megastore, on every street corner laid out in perfect 1 square mile grids. So no one is really more than 5 minutes away from getting last minute supplies if an emergency hit.

San Franciscans are DOOMED!

The state/city Emergency Services folks seem to be doing a decent job, but 90+% of the citizens of the Bay Area are still NOT prepared for an inevitable 7-day ordeal in the next decade or two which will likely to be the most costly and challenging "near term" natural disaster in US history...

Geez - the Tay River Bridge. Most folks over on this side of the Atlantic won't remember that one, unless they are engineers

LOL Are you saying that most folk on your side of the pond know were the Tay River is?

My BIG worry in NYC (besides being ground zero for 'man mad disasters') is what is called "The New York Bight Scenaro"

If you look at a topographic map of NYC, and particularly one with a fathom curve, you'll notice that we have a large area of fairly shallow water offshore, and we are right at a sharp bend in the coastline

If a major (or even not so major) hurricane came up the shore as struck in NY Harbor (or actually worse, the eye goes ashore with a glancing blow into NJ so the east wall of the eye is in NY Harbor), there would be a MASSIVE storm surge. NYC actually has some shoreline flooding during the monthly high tides if there is onshore wind. Large sections of lower Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn, and the parts of Brooklyn and Queens on the south shore of Long Island are in serious risk of flooding in even a Cat 1 hurricane

The problem is, there are SO many people that have to be moved, that they will have to start early, and given human nature, and the facts that 1)It hasn't happened in a long time and 2)NYC probably has the least cars/capita of just about anywhere in the USA, it's going to be "fun". In addition, being that the evacuation would have to start 72 hours or so before expected landfall, the cone of uncertainty is large enough that Nassau and Suffolk counties to our east, and parts of NJ will be evacuating themselves (want some fun? Look at a cross section or good topo map of Long Island - basically, it's a line of hills on the North Shore (the Terminal morrain) and a runout to an aluvial plain of sand to the south shore - the south shore is FLAT)

I know that NYC figures that if they are going to get hit with a cat III, they have to evacuate slightly more than 2.3 MILLION people, and I thing Nassau and Suffolk will be evacuating something like 1.5 million people at the same time. Given that there are exactly 8 bridges/tunnels off this island, and only 4 of them DON'T go to Manhattan...

(That's why when I bought my house, I actually looked at evacuation maps, and Topo maps, and bought a house on one of the highest hills in the city - I figure if the storm surge hits 110ft, we've got other problems)

Well, I will get the D/FW area. I already typed it once, but for some reason lost my internet connection and the work product.

More later.

I have the Hurricane Evacuation Map from the NYC office of Emergency Management hanging right here on the wall behind my desk.

Get it here in the language of your choice:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/ready/hurricane_guide.shtml

It's a really, really interesting map, as it puts places like JFK and LGA airports UNDER WATER in a Category 2 or better hurricane. Think about that for a moment. That's a scenario that has GLOBAL implications.

South Brooklyn is in a bad way no matter what.

On the NYC OEM site, it said they were the #2 most vulnerable city to a hurricane. I believe New Orleans was #1.

That should put things into perspective, but most people won't realize it until it's too late. A severe hurricane that aims at the city would push a lot of water into Long Island (assuming it's on the northeast side of the hurricane ). Let's just say there is no way to evacuate Long Island with the amount of time you have. Look what happened when there was an itsy bitsy fire on the Triborough Bridge this week.

Throgs Neck Bridge - not the RFK (nee Triborough) - and there are still lane closures from that mess - I live about 2 miles south of the bridge

Ahh, the New York Bight Scenario.

I currently live at Ground Zero for this. While not technically in New York City, I'm just over the Reynolds Channel from Far Rockaway, and the island I live on is supposed to be under 20 feet of water in any sort of hurricane hitting the NY area.

I'm a part of the local rescue squad, so I've seen all of the plans, stacked the cases of MREs, and know where the "high ground" evacuation areas are. However, my hurricane plans are very simple:

1) From June through November, check www.nhc.noaa.gov regularly.
2) When 5-day cone covers NY area: pack bags, gather documents, fill gas tanks, and in general, get ready.
3) When 3-day cone covers NY area: get in the cars and drive to one of two BOL's where we'd be welcomed (my inlaw's in the Catskills, and good friends in the Berkshires).
4) If we're late getting out, or for whatever reason it looks like we can't get through the backups in the city, we can abort to my parent's place in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, which should be relatively safe, and is definately high ground.

I am not looking forward to needing to test any of this, however it is a much easier decision tree than when I lived in Brooklyn and would have to decide whether to stay or go. Now, I'll go. No discussion.

Minneapolis is sort of mellow..not a whole lot going on in the first place. when the freeway bridge went down a few years ago people jumped into help and in the winter pushing a stranger's car out of a snowbank is kind of a sport.it's by no means perfect and has it share of crime but on a one to ten-one being really bad--i would give it an eight..by the way our kids came in first in the nation for being the least obese.with all the new road clearing gear we have now i don't think we would ever have a "shut down the city" snowstorm again and thats about the only natural disaster that might come our way.

The Dallas / Fort Worth Metroplex has to be one of the least prepared areas as far as the actual population is concerned. When our annual ice storm that usually lasts one or two days hits, people act as though it is the end of the world. That grocery stores are wiped out of food, which tells me folks aren't even ready for three days.

If one could make preparedness a "Keeping-Up-With-The-Jones" type of activity, then we would be ready for anything and EVERYTHING.

Like Comms said about Phoenix, many that live here are not from here, or even the region. Folks who are not "street wise" to the local natural threats like tornados just don't understand the need to be ready.

D/FW also has an issue with a multitude of municipalities within the geographic area. Each EMS/Fire/LE department cannot communicate with the other, so there will be coordination issues to a choke even the best intentioned first responders.

I know that if a reason to hit the road ever comes up, I am glad I live on the outskirts, and my BORV is stored a little farther out. We will just meet up at the shop, consolidate vehicle loads and head away from town. Once clear of the D/FW congestion, then we will look to a destination.

It's my opinion that the Houston city government is well prepared for disasters, though mostly because they've underwent several trials by fire. I was really impressed by most of their actions during Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Ike.

When N.O. was hammered by Katrina Houston officals immediately realized that they'd be getting thousands of refugees and sprang into action. They knew the logistics of tracking/moving supplies were going to be a nightmare so the first thing they did was call Walmart and request help from their logistics staff. It was a stroke of genius. Walmart supplied expert logistics people, software, and hardware to organise/move everything and it worked great.

A month later Houston was in the crosshairs of Hurricane Rita. People, having watched the N.O. disater, freaked out and four million people tried evacuating the city. There was some critizism about how that was handled, but most of that I blame on the people themselves. Houston has a well-thought out evacuation plan (run from water, hide from wind) based on your location but people just ran wether they were in a danger zone or not. There was also complaints that "Houston" didn't open up both sides of the freeway soon enough for evacuation. Considering many different county officals, police departments, and heavy equipment involved they actually did it very quickly. More importantly, a state-wide network was set up so that the next time reversing the freeways can be done with one phone call.

You may remember the scenes of gridlocked traffic from people evacuating. Hundreds of people were stranded along the road. The night before the hurricane was supposed to hit buses were sent out to collect all these people and take them to shelters. The city also sent vehicles out to help any infirm/handicapped/elderly people who wanted to be moved to a shelter.

Hurricane Ike knocked Houston power out for days, even weeks in some places. Mistakes were made, but lessons were learned. The main complaints were from people who weren't prepared. Those who were found it to be a big party.

All in all, we may not have the numbers/money New York does, but we are ready to roll with what we do have and we've had some dang good tests of the system. Given the choice I'd rather be in Houston than any other city I know during a disaster.

-Blast

Evacuating New York City, especially if it involves an evacuation of Long Island too, is a massive undertaking. I doubt it could be easily accomplished in two days.

Having left an NYC apt. in the not too distant past and living in a suburb, I've thought about potential large scale disasters. The two I fear most are a hurricane and a tsunami. The hurricane allows some time for preparation, even if it makes a relatively sudden change in direction. If a hurricane decided to proceed with it's eye comping up through the Narrows (the narrowest point between Brooklyn and Staten Island) would it allow enough time to evacuate the areas in danger, bsically all of Brookyln, almost if not all of Queens and Manhattan, as well as Staten Island and many other nearby areas? I doubt it. Evacuating Brooklyn itself would put and enormous strain on every mode of transportation out of Brooklyn, except for perhaps those heading east onto Long Island. The bridges to Manhattan and Staten Island would be overwelmed. Brookyn, at about 2.5 million people, has five times the population of New Orleans-pre Katrina. Queens has another 2.2 million, Manhattan about 1.6 million, the Bronx maybe 1.3 million and Staten Island a little under 500,000, about the same as NOLA-pre Katrina. Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island add probably another 2.3 or so million. There are a couple ferries leaving Long Island that do not require those who might be evacuating to go through NYC, but that would only allow ofr escape by a small number. A large scale disaster is probably going to leave a lot of New Yorkers unable to get onto land north of New York City.

A tsunami is possibly more devasting than a hurricane, if you believe some forecasts about Cumbre Vieja. It's a volcano on the island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands. Reportedly, half of the mountain IS GOING to slide into the Atlantic at some time. If it does it in small pieces over time, few worries for those of us in the U.S. If not, if it slides off into the Atlantic in one piece, the predictions say the U.S. East Coast is going to get hit with waves up to 200 feet high. The tsunami will hit in about 7 hours. There is simply no way most of Long Island and New York City can be evacuated. I will be fleeing my house in Connecticut as fast as I can, but I won't have to get too far to be more than 300 feet about sea level.

Other than scenarios invovling mega disasters, New York City is about as well prepared as possible. The City has put a lot of effort into preparing. When anything happens, small scale, the City is on it right away. The chances of something getting amplified due to in action are slim. The chances the people in the City's bureaucracy have not considered a possible scenario are probably slimmer. That and the actions of New Yorkers overall provide a level of comfort that I could not imagine elsewhere. During the blackout of 2003, New Yorkers dealt with it as well as anyone could ever expect. The took to the bars and socialized as far as I could see, and I was with them. And, I will never forget the things I saw walking out of downtown Manhattan late in the afternoon of 9/11 and the next few days. It was a city of stunned and mourning, but proud people seeking to help and be helpful.

Perfectly safe here in Cleveland. Nothing left to damage.

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.

Dagny,

Thanks for the link. I often travel to DC on business and I'll keep this info in my bag. I have to laugh though at the comment that they will set the timing of the traffic signals to speed traffic out of the city. As one who has spent countless hours trying to leave the city on New York Avenue at rush hour I would appreciate if they could time those singals every day!

And I'm sure that I-495 would work quite well as an evacuation parking lot. Oy.

Andy

well I spent some time on the AZ Dept of Emer. Mgnmt. and didn't get much. Though I did print out the 50 mile Ingestion Pathway Zone for the Palo Verde nuke plant outside of town. I am juuuust outside it on the other side of town.

Will keep looking and contact my local SAR. Been thinking of joining them anyway.

In Chicago, prep means keeping an eye on the weather and having a really good jacket. Both heath and cold are issues.

Central California. Economically challenged in good times. Many, many folks on various forms of public assistance - which would likely shut down at least for a while in an emergency. We also have every ethnic group and language imaginable and that can be counted on to make communications an incredible mess.

Did I mention that budget crises at the state, county, and city level have rsulted in reduced emergency service personnel with more cuts on the way? Or that our county's medical care is ranked at the bottom of the state in terms of quality?

I am afraid a major emergency would result in demand far exceeding capability here.

My strategy: plan to not be in this town for long if there is a major problem. Hopefully I can get my parents onto my sailboat and cast off for a cruise independent of shore events for an extended time - perhaps until we have evacuated the emergency zone.

... and politics have killed many Community Emergency Response Teams (C.E.R.T.) around the county because there was an unfounded fear that they would "take jobs" of "professionals" (professional only means full-time paid apparently).

Distributed Emergency Management. It's the only way now.