Martin,

And this article as well as this guy's "failure" surprised you? NYC has shorter attention span to disasters than 3 week old puppy. If it is not free or hip NYCers don't want it. NYC will always be unprepared due to ignorance of its residents. No motivation or pre-emptive thinking is our signature move. We want handouts and someone else to care for us. 90% of sick people I come in contact with don't even have basic food/med supplies. Well they can afford a 60inch plasma TV but no medicine for their asthma. Trip to the hospital that could have been avoided by taking a tylenol ($5) turns into a 12 hr adventure with ambulance ride and hospital bill curtesy of tax payer and the city. Now NYC puts an importance scale on their call type for police and ems response. Now people learn to say the right thing. I say armed robbery and cops are there in 2 minutes. You say car break in and it takes them 5 hours. I say chest pain and get dual response under 10 min. You say sick and it takes me 20-30 min and priority is falling. Emergency Services and city gov't are NYC residents' backup and disater plan. But it's not necessary people fault. It's also the city that gives away stuff for free and maintains people on welfare making them dependent on the system. I'm hot - take me to ER with AC. I'm hungry - take me to ER with food. I'm thirsty - give me water. But than again natural selection in case of disaster maybe wouldn't be that bad. Maybe my rant machine went off for a bit there but it's true. NYC commuters and residents are more interested in portable fans and iphones than water and flashlight.