Disaster may be fading from other New Yorkers’ minds, but hospitals like Beth Israel have been forced to permanently re-examine their operations.

Before the antiseptic smell even has a chance to reach your nose, the first thing you notice about Beth Israel’s ER is the sheer number of people occupying it. Bodies fill every chair in the cramped waiting room and every bed in sight; bodies linger in corridors. Months after Hurricane Sandy’s New York landfall, one of the few hospitals fully up and running in downtown Manhattan is still bearing the brunt of the storm’s devastation.

Jim Mandler, vice president of public affairs and communications at the hospital, says there’s a method to all this madness.

“That happens over time,” he explained, indicating that however chaotic things may appear, sufficient practice has smoothed out the hospital’s routines.

While Beth Israel never closed during the disaster, it felt the effects of being the only hospital open for a time in the area.

About two weeks after the hurricane that shook Lower Manhattan to its core, Murray Hill resident Brett Shanley was moving into a new apartment when he felt a persistent shooting pain in his back. He knew he’d pinched a nerve. Shanley immediately made his way to NYU Langone Medical Center a few blocks from his apartment. There were sandbags around the hospital; it was still closed. Shanley hopped in a cab to Beth Israel, where a nightmarish scene awaited him.

“I had never seen [an ER] this crowded or this foul. Sneezing and bleeding and shouting, snoring and crying and muttering—it felt like an asylum,” Shanley said.

“People kept streaming in with nowhere to sit … the room maybe held 50 people comfortably and there were 80 to 90 people in it. The ceilings were low and it was poorly lit.”

“The staff seemed hard-working, curt and exhausted,” he added.

After three hours, Shanley was able to see a doctor. “Ultimately I was called back deeper into the depths of the hospital which, in comparison, felt like a high-end resort. The halls were clean, well-lit and uncrowded. People even smiled and joked. It was hard to believe it was the same building.”

Shanley said he spent about six hours in the ER that day.

While Shanley’s visit to Beth Israel did not coincide with the worst of the storm, it reveals the dire circumstances of a facility still facing the fallout of a disaster which shut down every other hospital in the lower third of Manhattan.

The media spotlight on the impressive evacuation efforts of NYU Langone Medical Center during the storm has overlooked the pressure put on other facilities due to overcrowding, say hospital administrators. This pressure has been enormous, particularly at Beth Israel.

“We’re getting a different population than we’re used to,” explained Mary Walsh, the chief nursing officer for Beth Israel. “Psychiatry has probably been the major difference.”

In addition to added psychiatry services, the hospital has had to take on more emergency patients, provide extensive obstetrical (OB) services and even house some of Bellevue’s prison population.

“[Admitting] four to five patients under arrest at one time is unusual,” said Walsh, compared to standard procedure.

Throughout the storm and its aftermath, Beth Israel was forced to meet many very specific and unusual needs. The hospital served not only as an emergency room, but a pharmacy, a dialysis center, a methadone clinic, a place to sleep and a place to charge cellphones. Displaced people throughout the city made their way to Beth Israel, often simply wandering in off the street, said John Samuels, the administrative director for emergency services. He pointed out that it became a real security issue.

“People would come in and say, ‘Can you go pick this person up in the street?’ People couldn’t call 911,” Samuels said.

Anything for which someone might ordinarily call their doctor, they turned to the only open hospital—and one of the few open establishments at all—downtown.

“We weren’t just meeting medical needs, we were meeting social needs too,” Mandler said. The hospital became a sort of community center; no one was turned away.

Perhaps counterintuitively, though, the real spike in patients—and in the severity of their cases—came after the storm had receded. At that point, the social needs had been met, many could return home, and those who were seriously sick or injured came to the hospital for the first time.

“That’s when people woke up and realized, ‘I need to get to the hospital,’” Samuels said.

Prior to the storm, Beth Israel saw approximately 320 patients a day; during the storm, the hospital was seeing highs in the mid-400s. Ambulance volume doubled as well. According to Samuels, an ambulance is more ominous—indicative of a sicker patient.

The current patient load remains substantially higher than usual, with between 75 and 100 extra patients per day.

Beth Israel brought on other doctors—many from NYU—and purchased more resources, including beds and linens, to meet increased need. The hospital also opened up additional units and fed its employees around the clock while they were holed up inside. Samuels said it was hard to place a price tag on the added costs.

Alan D. Aviles, president of the Health and Hospitals Corp. (HHC), said the cost to repair New York City public hospitals and ensure against future damage would likely exceed $800 million.

The exhausted staff Shanley encountered had been sleeping side by side on the floor of the hospital, often in four-hour shifts, throughout the worst of the storm.

“The nurses did a yeoman job,” said David Bernhard, the senior vice president of medical affairs. “Employees were sleeping in the hospital who might have gone home … it was really a remarkable effort.”

Beth Israel also took in about 140 evacuees from sister hospitals, but running on a generator still didn’t mean everything functioned properly. Walsh explained Sandy was different than other disasters because not only was the environment affected, but so were the hospital’s usual techniques.

New York City Council members have introduced a bill in the aftermath of Sandy which aims to strengthen flood-proofing requirements for health-care facilities in the city. Hearings have been under way to address these issues.

Administrators agreed emergency planning, including the hospital’s emergency management committee, was helpful, but everything could be better the next time around.

Hospital administrators realized, for instance, post-Sandy, the ER demanded certain necessary modifications. For one, they needed to re-examine their fast track system, which aims to move patients with less serious ailments in and out quickly. They transformed one of their three treatment pods into the fast-track area during the storm, a change that has remained in place. The hospital also opened up a private VIP room into a space where several patients could be treated side by side.

“We will still need to reassess the fast track,” explained Lisa Dyer, Beth Israel’s nursing director, adding with the new changes, non-urgent patients are already not waiting as long as before. She described it as a work in progress.

Despite its severity, Hurricane Sandy wasn’t the first event in recent years to spur much-needed change at Beth Israel.

Mandler described a recent decision by the hospital he called fortuitous. After Cabrini Medical Center closed in 2008, Beth Israel expanded their space, allowing them to take in many more patients. After the 2010 closing of St. Vincent’s hospital, the added space was a major help, as Beth Israel patient numbers saw an immediate surge. However, Hurricane Sandy has taught administrators at Beth Israel they still need to address surge capacity issues.

Lisa Cannistraci, who is something of a West Village staple as the owner of Henrietta Hudson bar and a member of Community Board 2, recently had to confront these issues firsthand.

Cannistraci broke her thumb in a freak accident two weeks ago and went to Beth Israel around 11 p.m.

“There was no seating, it was packed to the gills,” said Cannistraci. “They alluded to the fact that I’d be there all night … I did the intake and then after I sat down I said to myself, ‘I gotta go.’”

Cannistraci had a friend drive her to a hospital in New Jersey where she was in and out in under two hours.

“The ambiance was very dismal among people waiting [at Beth Israel],” said Cannistraci. “There had to be 120 people there.”

Cannistraci noted the staff at Beth Israel was “fantastic” despite the overcrowding.

“St. Vincent’s closing was a tragedy to everybody,” she added.

With regard to long-term plans for the hospital, including additional facility construction, Mandler said Sandy will definitely influence the outcome.

Beth Israel’s president, Harris Nagler, agreed with this assessment. For all Beth Israel’s response efforts, “Sandy really tested the system,” he said. “We need to ask if we’re currently at the tipping point of responding.”

While most New Yorkers may have moved on from the hurricane, Beth Israel and other downtown hospitals do not share that luxury. Bellevue, which closed for the first time in 275 years according to Aviles, has resumed many of its services but is still not taking ambulances. The VA hospital is closed with plans to reopen in mid-February.

Even so, Walsh believes Beth Israel’s patient load is likely to be higher for good. “When Bellevue opens again some patients will still come back,” she said. “Because of our care.”

The impact of Sandy on the hospital will not be forgotten by Beth Israel staff members anytime soon.

“Here,” said Bernhard, Hurricane Sandy “is still on everybody’s mind every day.”

Kristine Keller

I am rational. I am a woman of reason. I operate in life under a series of principles ardently rooted in reality. When a rainbow’s colors paint the sky, there’s no luck or gold for me, only tiny water droplets in the air reflecting light as the sun shines behind me at the right angle. A shooting star is merely a meteor splattered across the sky, not the force that will cause me to Freaky Friday-life-swap with Jessica Biel. And yet, I’m a slave to superstition. If I’m wearing what I’ve dubbed my good luck bangle, I’ll make myself believe I’ll be discovered while eating Belgian fries at Pommes Frites and subsequently cast in a Quentin Tarantino movie … or, at the very least, as an extra who can snack at the craft services table. That’s how destiny unfurled for Gisele, they say. Just luck of the jewels.

And when I inevitably lose that bangle, my good luck earring (just the right one) will have to act as my new fortune supplier. Wearing these items certainly can’t be the cause of good fortune hitherto experienced, but the idea of facing the world without a talisman makes me feel like I’m in that nightmare where I’m on the 6 train. Naked. Next to Jay-Z. On a day he decides to freestyle-rap about his fellow subway passengers.

So, what is it about superstition that takes firm hold of this scientific being? During my journey on the supernatural stair-master, I visited a place where dreams are discovered and materialized. Where superstition is housed and nurtured. And I don’t mean Broadway’s revival of Ghost. I’m talking about a place down with the tarot cards and up with the spirits: downtown’s finest psychic. With the new year hitting soon, my craving for life’s answers has left me salivating more than Pavlov’s dog. I don’t care about the “why” but mull over answers to three meta W’s—what will I accomplish, who will be the important players in my life, and when, when, when does it all happen? A psychic offers us that quick fix, like a shot of hope in our insatiably inquisitive veins.

When I entered behind the prophet’s swanky beaded curtain, I was greeted with one sentence: “I can feel your energy from the streets!” But, I’d have to soft-pedal that energy and eagerness, given that I could only ask one magic question. Amid the glow of the iridescent chandelier and tabletop crystal ball, I asked: What will be my greatest accomplishment in 2013?

After a swift shuffle and deal, my psychic’s tarot cards revealed that this would be the year I follow a lifelong dream. I was told the dream exists outside the realm of friendship and family and that if I wanted it to happen, I’d have to open myself up more. Upon leaving I couldn’t help smile at the thrill of uncovering something new and different in 2013. Though always guessing what’s in store for your future is as futile as trying to predict where the subway door will open, there is something to be said about thinking about goals. And whether it’s someone or some good-luck charm that can facilitate realizing your goals and believing they can happen, perhaps there’s room for a science-and-sorcery civil union. In fact, psychological studies have consistently shown that those who engage in good-luck rituals actually perform better in goal-related tasks than those who don’t. Activating superstitions boosts belief in yourself, raising levels of self-efficacy and, as a result, confidence. It might not be that your running shoes are lucky, but if you wholly believe they are, this could be the reason you’re sprinting like Usain Bolt. So, if an everlasting dream really is in my New Year cards, I’ll have to do as my teller of fortune divines and say yes to every opportunity. And with that advice reverberating in my mind, I have no choice but to call the acting class number taped to a Prince Street bulletin. It’s lucky 2013, and anything is possible.

Kristine received her master’s in
psychology from New York University.
She currently works at Vanity Fair.

Renowned Chef Daniel Boulud drops off a gourmet meal and jokes with a resident of Stuyvesant Town. The visit highlighted the Citymeals-on-Wheels program which helps to get food to homebound and elderly.

Downtown Getting Back to Business
The Downtown Alliance has made it their mission to mold and maintain Lower Manhattan as a world-leading central business district of today. The devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy pushed this organization to launch the Back to Business Small Business Grant Program that is now able to provide grant distribution for the first time. “Small businesses have been instrumental in the success of Lower Manhattan as a premier destination to live, work and visit, and so it has been vitally important to come to their aid during this period,” said Liz Berger, the president of Downtown Alliance.

As a result, small businesses located in Flood Zone A below Chambers Street, including a nail salon, dry cleaners and wine shop, have been awarded $266,000 in grants and $120,000 in deferred grants. These businesses were the first to apply on the first-come, first-serve basis, and were certainly not the last. The period for small businesses to submit a grant application ended Dec. 13, but all applications received after will be held and processed if funds are still available.

Contributors to the grant fund include Goldman Sachs, Trinity Church, Citibank, the Durst Organization, Howard Hughes Corp., AT&T New York and Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, CB Richard Ellis, the FiDi Association, Platinum Properties and real estate brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield.

Sen. Squadron Presses for State Gun Control
New York state Sen. Daniel Squadron has strongly advocated for gun restriction legislation throughout his time in Albany. In light of the unimaginable tragedy in Newtown, Conn., other politicians are now joining the fight. Squadron announced last week that the special legislation session he had called in October to pass essential gun control laws may soon be taking place. After thanking Gov. Cuomo and fellow colleagues pushing the cause, Squadron said in a statement, “A package of common-sense measures—including my bill to crack down on assault weapons, as well as critical background checks and limits on guns sales, and the vital crime-solving tool of microstamping—would create the basic protections we need to truly save lives.” He added that the military-style weapon used in the Newtown attack would be banned if his assault weapons bill were passed.

In a statement issued in October, Squadron had called for stronger legislation before another murder could be committed with an assault weapon. “There is simply no reason for a civilian to carry these types of high-powered weapon,” he said. “Before another drop of blood is spilled and another innocent life is lost, New York’s Legislature must do our job and pass these bills.”

An Early Christmas Feast
Last week, New York chef Daniel Boulud and chefs from his finest restaurants teamed up with Citymeals-on-Wheels to make sure the elderly confined to their homes could taste a bit of gourmet comfort this holiday season. On Dec. 20, elderly residents of Stuyvesant Town affected by Hurricane Sandy opened their doors, and mouths, to meals of expertly prepared shepherd’s pie, beef ravioli with carrot confit, coq au vin with pasta, braised lamb with polenta and cassoulet Toulousain.

The meals—300 in total—were prepared by Boulud and his team, who volunteered to help make Christmas extra-special this year. Joining Chef Boulud was William Cox, Bar Boulud; Aaron Chambers, Boulud Sud; Gavin Kaysen, Café Boulud; Eddy Leroux, Daniel; Jean Baptiste Alexandre, DB Bistro; Eli Collins, DBGB; Beth Shapiro, executive director of Citymeals-on-Wheels; and Robert Grimes, Citymeals-on-Wheels board member.

“As a professional chef, I have the privilege of cooking for food-loving guests every night, but Citymeals provides the opportunity to share my passion with those who are less fortunate,” Boulud said.

Citymeals-on-Wheels will continue to provide nourishment and companionship through the weekend and on Christmas Day, supplying over 7,455 meals and 14,694 “Season’s Greetings” boxes to elderly residents throughout the city when many senior centers are closed.

Compiled by Jessica Mastronardi

Council Member Margaret Chin, Downtowner of the Year

When we decided to start a tradition of presenting awards to outstanding community members who live and work in downtown Manhattan, the one thing we knew would be easy was finding recipients. We weren’t disappointed.

The inaugural Downtown OTTY (Our Town Thanks You) Awards honor a diverse group of amazing people from all neighborhoods, professions and backgrounds, but the one thing they have in common is their commitment to making downtown an incredible place. Whether it’s a school chef getting kids excited about kale chips, a longtime block association president dedicated to preserving local history or a yoga instructor who gives back, each of our winners brings their specific brand of vision, passion and talent to their community.

We hope you enjoy reading about the people who make your neighborhood great, and we know that they’ll all continue to impress us in the coming year.

Sincerely,

Megan Bungeroth

Editor-in-Chief, Our Town Downtown

2012 Downtown OTTY Award winners

Council Member Margaret Chin – Downtowner of the Year

Susan Henshaw Jones – Culture

Derrick Komorowski – Real Estate Royalty

Kit Yuen – Healthcare Pro

Liz Berger – Community Builder

Dr. James Cooper – Religion

Officer James Rudolph – Bravest & Finest

David Garza – Downtown Recovery

Barbara Warren – Healthcare Pro

Jenny Gensterblum – Culinary Excellence

Tricia Donegan – Entrepreneur

Christopher Kui – Downtown Recovery

Richard Blodgett – Community Builder

Downtown Manhattan boasts many coveted addresses, but some buildings have earned reputations of a different kind. 

The phrase “buyer beware” is especially relevant for those looking for a place to live in New York City, given the widely unpredictable nature of buildings and landlords, which run the gamut from good to bad, and many times even ugly.

Downtown, there are several addresses with the dubious distinction of being named to the public advocate’s Worst Landlords Watch List. One of this year’s top violators, based on information from residents as well as city agencies, is 197 Madison St.

The troubled history at 197 Madison includes both city Department of Building (DOB) complaints, which have to do with building maintenance problems, as well as Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD) complaints, which address mostly poor living conditions such as pests, lack of heat, hot water problems and safety issues.

To date, the building has 13 outstanding DOB violations classified as “hazardous” safety violations which include failures to maintain exterior walls, as well as blocked exits and entrances, and other fire code violations.

The building’s owners, KL Father & Son Inc., owe thousands in fines to the city, but many of the fines have been written off as legally uncollectable.

Further highlighting the building’s problems, back in August, an emotionally disturbed tenant, armed with a knife, held the building’s landlord hostage and forced the landlord to jump out of a second-floor window to the street below. Several calls to the company’s head officer, Josephine Lo, were not returned.

Ryan Fitzgibbon, a spokesperson for the city’s DOB, said that the agency does what it can to make sure that landlords are doing the right thing. “A property owner is responsible to maintain his or her property in a safe and lawful manner at all times and that includes work being done on the property,” she said.

She added that the agency investigates all complaints it receives. Last year, DOB inspectors conducted more than 290,000 inspections and issued close to 60,000 violations, including thousands of stop-work orders.

But increasingly, complaints of illegal, after-hours construction have been prevalent downtown.
Kelly Magee, a spokesperson for Council Member Margaret Chin, has reported numerous complaints of after-hours construction at 21 Ann/113 Nassau St. as well as many other locations in the district.

Brandon Kielbasa, a housing specialist with Cooper Square Committee, an organization that works to preserve and develop affordable housing on the Lower East Side, said that some shady landlords use ongoing construction as a means to harass tenants into leaving their buildings.

“We counsel tons of tenants dealing with construction in their building. Aggressive landlords have learned that DOB will rarely catch them working after permitted hours or when using illegal and often dangerous construction methods,” Kielbasa said. “They frequently let construction run amuck in their buildings in an effort to harass rent-stabilized tenants.”

Kielbasa reported speaking with dozens of tenants who said their landlords routinely exploited DOB’s lack of enforcement to harass them and edge them toward buy-outs. He said that tenants were told about “lots of construction in the building in the next six months,” and that the building would be a “pretty difficult place to live.”

The tenants, he said, were then asked if they’d be interested in money to relocate and move on.
“Tenants call in complaints to 311 when they see violations; but DOB comes out two or three days later, after the landlord’s crew has already finished their work, and there’s nothing for the inspector to witness,” Kielbasa explained. “The complaints get dismissed.”

He added that DOB needs a means to act quickly when dealing with some landlords. “They need a mechanism like ‘Real Time Enforcement’ to keep these chronic bad actors in check. New York City tenants’ health, safety and general welfare are really at risk here.”

Councilman Dan Garodnick also expressed concern about landlords harassing tenants. “We saw landlords using a variety of means to get tenants out of their rent-stabilized apartments and there was no way for a tenant to file a lawsuit against a landlord doing this kind of thing,” he said.
He added that landlords, in their efforts, would cut off heat and hot water, break locks and otherwise make apartments uninhabitable or just very unpleasant.

In an effort to remedy the problem, Garodnick introduced the Tenant Protection Act in 2007 to defend tenants against various types of harassment from landlords. The legislation, signed into law in 2008, covers illegal construction as well as other conditions that might force a lawful tenant to consider leaving their dwelling.

Another problematic property, according to Magee, is 135 Eldridge St. by SDR Park. She said that the councilwoman has received complaints from nearby residents that “shady stuff goes on over there.”

While DOB records show there are illegally subdivided apartments at the location, including a partial vacate order for an illegal cellar apartment, the real complaints are from neighbors on the block who report a variety of unpleasant conditions.

A neighbor who lives on Eldridge Street but declined to give her name fearing backlash, said that one key problem emanating from the building is an excess of garbage that is improperly disposed of and contributes to a severe rat and rodent issue.

“The residents of 135 throw their garbage out in front of the building randomly. The amount of garbage from the building doesn’t add up to the amount of people that supposedly live there,” the woman said.

She added that the problem with the rats is exacerbated by several local food vendors who literally sell raw fish “on the sidewalk” and without any type of license or certifications from the city to sell food.

“Every night, the rats have a feast on this block,” she said.

Calling the street the “wild west,” the woman said she can’t figure out why such conditions on the street have been allowed to continue for several years despite numerous complaints to city officials and other agencies.

“People do whatever they want on the block.”

Barry’s Bootcamp was hit hard after the hurricane, but turned its misfortune into a way to help others

By Sharon Feiereisen

It’s hard to fathom that weeks after Hurricane Sandy reared its ugly head there are still countless without power, while others have been displaced indefinitely—or worse, permanently lost their homes. In a remarkable testament to the power of community, downtown locals have been banding together to undertake incredible feats to help those most in need.

Barry’s Bootcamp, a boutique fitness studio—with downtown locations in Chelsea and Tribeca—lost power the afternoon of Sandy and was forced to shutter both of its locations for nearly a week.
“I had received legitimate warnings from some friends over at the Weather Channel, which caused me to take the storm more seriously,” says Barry’s Bootcamp COO Joey Gonzalez. “My managers and I did what we could, but unfortunately most of the damage was caused by water, which was impossible to keep out.”

Like all businesses that were forced to shut down, Barry’s was financially impacted by the storm, but rather than dwell or wallow, Gonzalez and a number of his co-workers set out to help the relief effort “hand to mouth.”

After collecting monetary donations on their website and goods in their studio, which were donated by staff, clients and anyone in the neighborhood, they delivered them personally to Staten Island and the Rockaways.

“There is a real sense of coming together, and it seems like everyone just keeps thanking one another. We thank clients for donating. They thank us for our contributions. Victims thank us for showing up. We thank them for the opportunity to help. ‘Gratitude’ would have to be the word of the moment,” said Gonzalez.

The studio’s mission didn’t stop with multiple trips to hard-hit areas. Instructor Noah Neiman hosted a series of free classes for Sandy victims.

“I was sitting and watching the news coverage, and all I could think about was how great it would be if I could perhaps—even if only for an hour—get people’s minds off of all of their tragedy and loss,” said Neiman.

“New Yorkers are especially sensitive to any disruption in their routines, so I wanted to offer something comforting and familiar to raise the spirits of those affected,” he said.

While most of those who turned out for Neiman’s first series of gratis classes were people who had lost power and heat, the popular instructor hopes to also help those who suffered greater damage by extending the classes as New York and the people most severely devastated return to a more normal schedule.

“The physical demands of the relief effort and from people actually needing to clear the wreckage of their homes make it hard to focus on attending any form of therapy right now,” says Neiman. “I’d like to gain some more awareness for these classes in the coming weeks and extend this so that the people most affected know that they have that outlet when they are ready for it.”

It may seem trivial to care about a workout when you have endured massive devastation, but as many anxiety-ridden New Yorkers can attest, there is far-reaching healing power when it comes to physical exercise. Pure Yoga instructor Halle Becker said that her classes were packed as people recovered from Sandy.

“There was a need to commune and connect with like-minded people. Yoga is an exercise that quiets the mind and ignites the heart, so in tough times, this is a great recipe for healing; we learn to give of ourselves and to ourselves so that we can show up fully in even the toughest of times,” Becker said.

Gonzalez adds that exercise causes the body to release endorphins, which is always a good thing. “No matter who you are and what is happening in your life, endorphins bring joy,” he said. “While driving around the post-apocalyptic streets of Staten Island, I saw a woman running, listening to her iPod and tearing it up. It made me smile knowing for those 30 minutes or so, her world was a little bit better.”

LES volunteers Blaire Fontaine, Elise Fischer, and Rossy Rodriguez help plant new tulip bulbs on the storm damaged waterfront in Lower Manhattan.

As the storm’s impact on ecological systems and infrastructure becomes clear, what steps should be taken to secure the city against future floods?

In the days following late October’s hurricane-turned-superstorm Sandy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city and state officials described the immense damage to the city. They talked about the death toll, the lost homes and destruction to infrastructure, landmarks, businesses and natural environments around the waterfront. The impact continues, and will continue, to be uncovered.

In the weeks since Sandy made landfall on the East Coast, there has been much preliminary discussion of how to rebuild from here. One of the most important conversations taking place is what could have been prevented—the city’s most evident weaknesses—and what must change in the future to address this.

Ecological Impact
Christine Datz-Romero, executive director of the Lower East Side Ecology Center described the extensive damage East River Park sustained in Sandy’s wake. Numerous mature trees were uprooted and lost. Significant numbers of other plants were also damaged, as water washed up and flooded FDR Drive.

Even so, Datz-Romero said the full extent of Sandy’s damage to waterfront parks will not be known until the spring, when it becomes clear which plants will and will not survive.

According to her, however, the damage did not have to be so extreme.

“The plants growing there do not tolerate saltwater,” Datz-Romero said. She explained the natural environments around the waterfront could instead be used to absorb some of the impact of disasters like Sandy.

“This storm is an opportunity to think about waterfront parks and what ecological function they provide,” said Datz-Romero. “We could plant trees or plants that can withstand saltwater, or even slow down future storms by planting and creating resilient landscapes, like wetlands or salt marshes. There is a big lesson to be learned.”

Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh, who represents the 74th District, which includes the Lower East Side, agreed that while significant emphasis has been placed on implementing hard structural barriers to prevent storm surges, we must look to the possibility of “ecologically sensitive facilities” like the marshes and beaches Datz-Romero describes.

“There are naturally occurring beaches along the East River that could help protect Manhattan,” said Kavanagh. “It’s important to recognize that kind of thing has ecological benefits year-round and can be very valuable in a storm.”

Kavanagh has been promoting the East River Blueway project, co-partnered with Borough President Scott Stringer, which aims to “rethink the waterfront from the Brooklyn Bridge to 38th Street.”

Matthew Monahan, spokesperson for the Battery Park City Authority, echoed the wait-and-see approach—he believes it’s too soon to tell the full extent of the impact on Battery Park City’s mile-long esplanade. Monahan said the assessment is still under way, but notably emphasizes the use of the word “impact” rather than “damage” to describe the storm’s effect on the waterfront.

Residential Infrastructure
Ben Nitti, a downtown Manhattan real estate agent, said Sandy’s blow to waterfront infrastructure will certainly have an impact on real estate in the area.

“This will affect property values along Zone A,” explained Nitti. “Values will go down, people will not want to develop in that area.”

Zone A, or the area most susceptible to potential flooding from any hurricane, encompasses Battery Park City, the World Trade Center site, the South Street Seaport, parts of the Meatpacking District and other low-lying areas in Manhattan—many of the popular, expensive waterfront neighborhoods.

Nitti said while he knows fallout from the storm will be a problem, the full extent of the damage for real estate has also yet to be seen. Nitti thinks more developers will move to the Upper West and Upper East sides, where elevation makes for a “much safer area.”

“This is a huge section of real estate which loses value,” said Nitti. “And there is going to be a continuing weather problem.”

As far as the future of waterfront buildings, Nitti indicated changes made to Battery Park following 9/11. Backup generators became standard in newer buildings following the terrorist attacks.

“You’ll notice the lights didn’t go out in Battery Park [during Sandy],” Nitti said. “I think this will become the new norm.” Walls around the water will be raised higher and more generators will be added, according to Nitti.

“It’s possible the city might require restrictions on how things are built in those zones,” he said. “Requirements for different materials in certain areas is definitely possible.”

Assembly Member Kavanagh said that backup generators are not only crucial in waterfront buildings, but must also be routinely tested, and should not be installed in easily flooded areas, such as basements.

“We need to remember backup systems need to be ready in an emergency,” said Kavanagh. He also said protective walls are needed in residential facilities on the waterfront to mitigate flooding.

Many involved in real estate in the area are scrambling to minimize the impact on their business. Since the storm, some agencies have even taken to advertising their properties as “high and dry” and “unfloodable.” Real estate broker Peter-Charles Bright assures Our Town Downtown that this assessment on his real estate blog “APTcetera,” of a condo rental mere steps from the New York Stock Exchange, is not a joke.

Public Facilities
Many of the concerns facing residential infrastructure extend to public facility infrastructure as well.

Laura Gottesdiener, a housing and land-use activist in the city who has volunteered with Occupy Wall Street and helped with Sandy relief efforts, said the storm merely exacerbated problems that already existed, especially in public housing, along the waterfront.

Gottesdiener believes there are a number of components to consider in moving forward. “Our public transit system is incredible,” said Gottesdiener. “But it requires massive power, and we need more sustainable infrastructure.”

Above all, Gottesdiener emphasized the dire need for improvement in public housing projects along coastal areas, which had power restored long after other parts of Lower Manhattan.

“These areas were less likely to get stuff up and running,” said Gottesdiener, referring largely to complexes which house the elderly, disabled and poor. Residents were left stranded in high-rises, dependent on electricity to use elevators. They had no access to batteries or water—potentially lifesaving measures for some.

“Moving forward, we need to realize the people who get hit hardest are overwhelmingly already more vulnerable,” said Gottesdiener. “They are living in public housing in coastal areas, feeling isolated despite being a part of Manhattan.”

“We need more sustainable housing along coastal areas, especially public housing,” she said.

Kavanagh’s district includes three hospitals that were shut down due to the storm—Bellevue, NYU Medical Center and the V.A. Hospital. The Assembly Member said a combination of stronger walls and more effective pumping operations are needed in these areas, in addition to the more reliable generators.

“I don’t want to prejudge,” said Kavanagh. “But we have talked for years about sea walls that did not get built—if you’re on a river, you need to do what people have done for years in other similar places.”

Moving Forward
Vishaan Chakrabarti, the director of Columbia’s Center for Urban Real Estate, recently told the New York Observer there needs to be a way to protect the “thousands and thousands of housing units” being developed, and promoted by Mayor Bloomberg, on the waterfront.

Chakrabarti’s suggestion—perhaps extreme—is the installation of massive sea gates that can close at times of peril and protect the city from flooding. “The costs are obviously astronomical,” notes the Observer, also hypothesizing that Chakrabarti’s suggestion would be “the most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken.”

“Climate change is here, and we clearly have to acknowledge that these unusual weather events are going to become more and more frequent, and we’re going to have to do something about it,” Chakrabarti told the newspaper.

While Chakrabarti’s suggestion may be on the more radical end of the spectrum, government officials in New York echo a similar sentiment of overhauling the system.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement: “We have to take into consideration reforming, modifying our built environment, our infrastructure. This city, this region is very susceptible to coastal flooding. It’s not something we had to deal with, with any frequency whatsoever. So we’re not built in a way that has the built-in protections.”

Kavanagh believes the projected price tag is probably worth it. “It is early and we are still assessing,” he said. “My sense from other places—other cities and countries further along in this—when a single storm can do this much damage, expensive projects could prevent the surge from coming in unimpeded.”

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

The controversy over canceling the New York City marathon this weekend does not merely extend to the dangers posed for runners by downed power lines and flooding throughout the city — it also has to do with displaced residents of downtown Manhattan who just want to go home in peace.

For those who can’t go home, out-of-town marathon participants taking up valuable hotel space and resources has understandably raised tensions.

Other downtown New Yorkers want the rest of the city to understand — between the damage, deficits and crowding — Hurricane Sandy is not yet over for them.

Some have taken to blogging about their experience, hoping uptowners can begin to grasp their struggle, one to which many, they claim, seem blissfully unaware. Some can’t deny they’ve even had a little fun — the grownup equivalent of a snow day, perhaps.

Matthew Russell, a real estate agent with a love for post-apocalyptic movies, is one of them. Russell decided to stick out the storm in his 6th floor East Village apartment. In his blog post about “Living in the Dead Zone,” Russell was careful to note he, a healthy, 29-year-old with enough cash to get by, had an advantage over many. He added some of the elderly tenants who stayed in his building would have simply been unable to descend the “pitch black staircase” to evacuate.

The superintendent in Russell’s building has looked after the elderly tenants everyday, he explains, replenishing the water in their toilets and bringing them warm meals from Queens. Russell uses a hot cup of water, heated with the building’s gas, to “shower” in the morning.

Russell explains the system pedestrians have developed to signal their presence in the darkened streets: “At every intersection pedestrians flash their lights wildly in order to cross in safety, and judging by the driving pace, that is remarkably wise.”

Another blogger, Bianca Posterli, wrote of her experience after witnessing a transformer explode: “I…walked out of my apartment on 9th Street to a scene straight out of the apocalypse.

“While New Yorkers rarely ever talk to each other, here were complete strangers sharing stories, ruminating on what the next few days would hold,” she wrote. “I made my way to the corner, where a line had formed outside of the deli at least 15 people deep. With my cell phone out of order, I did something I thought I’d never have to do – used a pay phone.”

She also noted, insightfully, the one “upside” of Sandy: “For once we’re completely unencumbered by constant access to Twitter, Instagram, and emails. We’re forced to make conversation, get to know our friends, and LISTEN to each other.”

Stan Williams, “Maxim” magazine’s style editor, and his partner also decided to stay in their 7th floor apartment in the Village during the storm, a zone he coined “Zombieville.”  Only about 10 percent of the residents in Williams’s 200-apartment building stuck out the storm.

Williams said daytime was fine, pleasant even, when he’d briskly walk two miles to his midtown office, where he’d camp out for most of the day.  Returning home, however, “was pretty frightening once you got past Flatiron,” especially considering a notable drop in police presence, though in the dark it was difficult to tell if anyone was around at all.

Williams echoed the sentiment of Russell and Posterli, saying: “I feel fortunate. It was inconvenient, but an adventure.” He also noted how the blackout actually helped him focus and boost his productivity. All three were intent on finding a silver lining.

As Russell pointed out, all three seemed aware they were the “best case scenario” as far as storm survivors. “That is NOT the case for most people,” said Russell, who added he was “seriously having a blast.”

—

Imagine the following: It’s a beautiful Labor Day weekend. Sunny, cloudless, 80 degrees. Backyard barbecues are fired up all over the metropolitan area, and the beaches of New York City, New Jersey and southern Long Island are jam-packed with bathers. The only sign that something unusual is happening is the relatively big waves rolling up on Coney Island. It’s a surfer’s paradise.

Mike Lee isn’t enjoying the long weekend. For the last two weeks, Lee, the Director of Watch Command at New York City’s Office of Emergency Management, has been observing a series of weather systems form off the western coast of Africa, organize themselves into the familiar swirling pattern of tropical storms, and line up like airplanes coming in for a landing on the Caribbean.

One of those storms, a category-4 monster hurricane with sustained winds of 140 m.p.h., is violently churning the ocean 350 nautical miles off the coast of Georgia.

A hurricane like this one can usually be counted on to curve eastward and die a harmless death over the Atlantic. But with a large area of high pressure hovering just off the east coast, the computer models at the National Hurricane Center in Miami are largely in agreement: This one is heading north, tracking a direct hit on New Jersey somewhere north of Atlantic City.

Like the legendary “Long Island Express” of 1938, the fastest-moving hurricane ever recorded, it’s moving quickly. While no human or computer can ever be completely sure what a hurricane is going to do, this is looking like a worst-case scenario for New York City, the kind of scenario ”that gives emergency managers serious gastrointestinal distress,” says Lee. Because of its counter-clockwise rotation, the right side of a hurricane is the most powerful part of the storm.

The right side of this storm is fixing to land a haymaker on New York Harbor. If it makes landfall during high tide, the devastation will be unprecedented.

With the storm expected to hit within 24 hours, Mike Lee is in constant communication with Mike Wyllie, meteorologist-in-charge at the National Weather Service’s New York office in Upton. The OEM’s emergency operations center, meanwhile, is buzzing, while the mayor and his chiefs are hunkered down in the situation room. They have an incredibly difficult decision to make, a decision that has never before been made in New York City. They are preparing to order the evacuation of 900,000 New Yorkers whose homes are in the path of catastrophic flooding in the event of a category-4 hurricane. They will provide shelter for nearly a quarter million.

And while the storm is still far enough away that it could drift off course and miss New York City completely, a full evacuation may take up to 18 hours. They need to decide now. The fact that a mayoral election is only two months away doesn’t make the decision any less complicated. An unnecessary evacuation could be a political catastrophe.

—

Though it sounds like science fiction, the above scenario is all too plausible. “Try to tell someone in Sheepshead Bay that they have to evacuate immediately because within the next 24 hours they’ll have 30 feet of storm surge on their neighborhood,” says Mike Lee, before pausing to let you think about three stories of ocean water roiling through your own neighborhood.

“They’ll laugh at you—absolutely laugh at you,” he says. “I mean, I barely even believe it.”

I met Lee at this year’s Long Island/New York City Emergency Management conference and spent some time with him at the OEM “bunker” in Brooklyn. It turns out that the region’s emergency managers aren’t only worrying about terrorism these days. The big topic of discussion at the Melville, Long Island, Hilton was hurricanes. And the strong consensus is that the metropolitan region is due for a big one. Overdue, in fact.

The 1938 Long Island Express, a borderline category-4 hurricane that plowed into West Hampton, causing widespread death and devastation across New York, New Jersey and New England, was the last major hurricane to hit the region. Statistically speaking, “a storm of that magnitude may repeat every 70 to 80 years or so,” Lee says. “So, do the math. Whether it happens this year, next year, or in five years, it’s going to happen.” And with this year’s hurricane season forecasted to be even busier and more dangerous than last year’s record-setter, “It’s just a matter of time,” Lee says.

Though it is rare for big hurricanes to hit the New York metropolitan region, there are a variety of “oceanographic, demographic and geologic characteristics that greatly amplify any hurricane” that comes our way, according to Nicholas Coch, a professor of coastal geology at Queens College. In many ways, Coch explains, “The New York City area is the worst possible place for a hurricane to make a landfall.”

New York’s first vulnerability is psychological. This is a city where children playing in the dirt are told by their mothers to “get up off the floor.” We tend to forget that we have any connection whatsoever to the natural world. The vast majority of the city’s eight million inhabitants simply have no idea that a hurricane can happen here.

“We live in a complacent coastal city,” Lee says. “A lot of people don’t even think that there are beaches here,” never mind 478 miles of coastline. In fact, New York City is behind only Miami and New Orleans on the list of U.S. cities most likely to suffer a major hurricane disaster. Compounding the problem is the fact that many of the New Yorkers who lived through 1985′s Hurricane Gloria believe they’ve experienced the worst of what nature has to offer. “That wasn’t a hurricane,” meteorologist Wyllie says. The storm was billed as a category-2 that weakened before it hit and came in at low tide. “Gloria was nothing.”

New York’s second vulnerability is demographic. During the decades of calm between major hurricanes, the city grows and forgets. During the great hurricane of 1821, only 152,000 people lived in New York City. When the next major, direct hit came in 1893, the city’s population was 2.5 million. At the time of the 1938 storm, Long Island wasn’t a densely populated suburban sprawl; it was a rural home for oyster fishermen, potato farmers and wealthy industrialists. The same storm today would wreak incredible havoc. AIR Worldwide Corporation estimates $11.6 billion in New York losses alone.

More than 20 million people live in the greater metropolitan region. Many live on coastal land, reclaimed swamp and barrier islands. Much of Lower Manhattan is built on landfill. Places like Rockaway, Coney Island and Manhattan Beach “are stretches of land that nature has created to protect the mainland from hurricanes,” Lee says. “In our civilization this is also the most desirable land to develop and build on. We’re not going to undevelop it. So we now have to deal with the threat.”

Coch, the six-foot-seven-and-a-half professor once nicknamed “Dr. Doom” because he was the first scientist to widely publicize New York City’s hurricane history and vulnerabilities, put it more poetically in a 1995 New York Times interview: The only difference between now and then is that “now we have millions of people to offer the God of the Sea.”

New York City’s biggest vulnerability is the most unyielding geology. The New York bight is the right angle formed by Long Island and New Jersey with the city tucked into its apex. “Hurricanes do not like right angles,” Lee says. “[They allow] water to accumulate and pile up.”

Couple this with the fact that New York resides on a very shallow continental shelf, and as a big storm pushes north, New York Harbor “acts as a funnel.” As storm surge forces its way into the harbor and up the rivers, it has nowhere to go but onto land. New York City, it turns out, has some of the highest storm-surge values in the country.

“When we see a category-3 storm making landfall in Florida, it may only have a 12-, 13-foot storm surge,” Lee says. “For us here, a category-1 storm can give us 12 feet of storm surge.”

Storm surge is the dome of seawater that is lifted up and pushed forward in front of a hurricane. It acts almost like a mini-tsunami, causing sea levels to rise rapidly and violently. Most people believe that high winds and rains are the main dangers of a hurricane. In fact, inland flooding caused by storm surge is the big killer. In 1821, stunned New Yorkers recorded sea levels rising as fast as 13 feet in a single hour at the Battery. The East River and Hudson Rivers merged over Lower Manhattan all the way to Canal Street. According to Coch, the fact that the 1821 storm struck at low tide “is the only thing that saved the city.”

—

To get a sense of the damage that storm surge can do to New York City, call 311 and ask them to send you a full-color copy of the New York City Hurricane Evacuation Map. It is a truly mind-boggling document. If a storm like the Long Island Express makes a direct hit on the city, everything below Broome Street will be inundated, some parts under as much as 20 and 30 feet of water. Chelsea and Greenwich Village are completely flooded, with the Hudson spilling over all the way to 7th Avenue. Likewise, the East River and East Village become one, with ocean water surging all the way to 1st Avenue. If you haven’t evacuated before the storm, forget it. During the storm, Manhattan’s east- and west-side highways vanish. Tunnels and bridges become unusable.

The outer boroughs also get hit hard. Opposed to that new Ikea being built on the waterfront in Red Hook? Don’t worry. There’s a decent chance it won’t be there after a moderate-size hurricane. Residents of Williamsburg-Greenpoint should seek out a male and female of each species and get in their arks. In a kind of one-two-punch effect, a major hurricane will push ocean water down from the Long Island Sound into the Upper East Side, South Bronx and northern Queens, flooding those areas severely. Vast stretches of southern Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island will be devastated. The map shows Atlantic Ocean storm surge reaching as far inland as Flatbush, just south of Prospect Park, with 31.3 feet of water atop Howard Beach.

“A lot of people say, ‘How can you come up with these numbers? Thirty feet, that’s ridiculous. It’s science fiction.’ Actually,” Lee says, “It’s science fact.” Hurricanes in the southern U.S. have proven the Army Corps of Engineers’ storm-surge calculations to be accurate within a few inches.

For a taste of what will happen to the city’s infrastructure, we can look at the damage wrought by the great nor’easters of the early 1990s. During those storms, the L train had to be backed out as the 14th Street tunnel began filling with water, and the FDR highway was so badly inundated that 50 motorists had to be rescued by dive teams. In the event of a direct hit by a category-3 hurricane, surge maps show that the Holland and Battery Tunnels will be completely filled with sea water, with many subway and railroad tunnels severely flooded as well. The runways of LaGuardia and JFK airports will get flooded by 18.1 and 31.2 feet of water, respectively.

Then there are the winds. The city’s two million trees will be a huge problem.

“New York City’s trees haven’t been stressed in years except for an isolated severe thunderstorm or two,” Wyllie says. They’ve had plenty of time to grow and wrap their roots around underground phone, electric, gas and water lines. As they are uprooted in the heavy winds, a lot of infrastructure both above and below ground is going to get wrecked.

As for skyscrapers, “The impact of catastrophic winds on high-rise buildings is still a little vague,” Lee says. “We don’t feel we have enough data on that.”

We do know that hurricane wind speeds multiply at higher altitudes. At 350 feet, the height of high-rise buildings on the Battery and the towers of the George Washington Bridge, hurricane winds will be twice as fast as they are on the ground. Newer, glass-skinned towers are not likely to do well in those conditions. Neither will human beings caught outside amidst flying debris. To give a sense of the unbelievable force of hurricane winds, Lee shows a photo from one of the four storms that struck Florida last year. It depicts a blunt piece of two-by-four driven straight through the trunk of a palm tree.

“It would be nasty,” Wyllie agrees. “If you get sustained winds going 80 to 90 miles per hour in the city—whoa, you can’t believe the destruction. We’ve never seen that. And as you go up 200, 300 feet,” he considers that for a moment. “That’ll be 100, 110 mph winds. Watch out.”

—

Professor Coch, whose business card reads “forensic hurricanologist,” believes that the best way to understand New York City’s hurricane future is to study its past. He became New York City’s leading hurricane historian virtually by accident.

After the nor’easters of December 1992 and March 1993 devastated Rockaway, Coch sent a group of his coastal-geology undergrads to observe the Army Corps of Engineers replenishing beaches with sand dredged from the sea. The students reported back that “the beach was covered in garbage. Coch remembers telling them, “Get used to it. This is New York City.” But they said, “No, this is funny garbage.” In the dredged-up sand, Coch’s students found hundreds of artifacts – plates, whiskey bottles, teapots, beer mugs, lumps of coal and, what proved to be the most telling clue of all, an old hurricane lamp. Mystified at how a treasure trove of 19th-century objects could have wound up underwater hundreds of feet off the coast of Rockaway, Coch and his students began investigating.

It took them about two years to unravel the mystery of Hog Island: New York City’s version of Atlantis.

It turns out there was once a small, sandy spit of an island off the southern coast of Rockaway. In the years after the Civil War, developers built saloons and bathhouses, and Hog Island became a sort of 1890s version of the Hamptons. During the summers, the city’s Democratic bosses used Hog Island as a kind of outdoor annex of Tammany Hall. That all ended on the night of August 23, 1893, when a terrifying category-2 hurricane rolled up from Norfolk, Virginia, and made landfall on what is now JFK airport.

The storm was a major event. All six front-page columns of the August 25, 1893 New York Times were dedicated to the “unexampled fury” of the “West Indian monster” and the damage it wrought throughout the region. Dozens of boats were sunk, and scores of sailors perished. In Central Park “more than a hundred noble trees were torn up by the roots,” and thousands of sparrows lay dead on the ground. “Gangs of small boys roamed through the Park in the early hours of the morning collecting the dead sparrows and picking their feathers.”

At the brand-new Met Life building at Madison Avenue and 23rd Street, a heavy-iron fence was torn away by the wind, plunging 10 stories and crashing through a stained-glass dome before landing on a mosaic “including quantities of costly Mexican onyx.” In Brooklyn, at Wyckoff and Myrtle Avenues, “the water in the street was up to a man’s waist,” and residents used ladders to get in and out of their houses. Most of the boats moored at the Williamsburg Yacht Club were “sunk, driven ashore or demolished.” The East River rose “until it swept over the sea wall in the Astoria district and submerged the Boulevard.” At Coney Island, 30-foot waves swept 200 yards inland, destroying nearly every man-made structure in its path and wrecking the elevated railroad.

“Hog Island largely disappeared that night,” Coch says. “As far as I know, it is the only incidence of the removal of an entire island by a hurricane.”

Hurricanes, Coch reminds, “operate on a geologic scale.”

—

Will New York City get hit by the Big One this season? It’s impossible to say. But we do know this: The risk of a major hurricane hitting the metropolitan region is significantly greater than it has been in a long time. Meteorologists have observed that Atlantic Ocean hurricanes tend to wax and wane over roughly 20-year cycles. Nineteen ninety-five marked the beginning of a period of above-normal hurricane activity. We are now in the middle of that cycle. The same climate conditions that made last year’s hurricane season so active are in place and even augmented this year. Low wind sheer and sea-surface pressure and a favorable African easterly jet stream all create ideal conditions for Atlantic hurricanes. El Nino, the unusually warm current that appears in the tropical Pacific off the coast of Ecuador every three to seven years, tends to dampen hurricane activity in the Atlantic. This year there is no El Nino.

Additionally, scientists say that man-made global warming is increasing the odds that tropical storms will dump on New York City with greater frequency and intensity. Tropical Atlantic sea-surface temperatures have steadily risen over the last decade. Hurricanes are essentially gigantic steam engines; they gain power from warm seas.

“With global warming there is more moisture in the atmosphere,” says Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “This moisture is the main fuel for hurricanes and tropical storms.” This year, tropical Atlantic sea-surface temperatures are the warmest they have ever been in recorded history, about two degrees Fahrenheit above normal. And while there is debate within the hurricane research community as to how much impact global warming ultimately has, there is no longer any question that global warming is contributing to more extreme weather events around the world.

Whatever the causes, forecasters are confident that 2005 will be a busy hurricane season, busier even than last year’s. Meteorologists are forecasting 15 named storms, eight of them hurricanes, four of them “intense” hurricanes. In an average year, about 10 storms get names, six become hurricanes and two become intense.

New York City’s hurricane season runs from August to October, peaking around September 10. To prepare for a storm, Lee suggests that New Yorkers call 311 or go online, find out what evacuation zone they’re in, and develop a plan. If a storm comes rolling in and the city tells you to evacuate, take heed. “People who decide to ride out a storm need to know that in the middle of it they can’t call 911 and say, ‘All right, come get me. I’m ready,’” Lee says. “We will not be able to come and get them. Once they’ve made the decision to stay, they’ve made that decision for the long haul. That’s a very serious decision.”

If the Big One hits this season, Lee may be taking his own advice. The first OEM “bunker” was located in the World Trade Center—in hindsight, a lousy location. A new OEM building is currently under construction on the bluffs of Brooklyn Heights. Until its completion, the city’s emergency managers are working in a converted warehouse on the Brooklyn waterfront.

In the event of a direct hit by a category-3 hurricane, New York City’s Office of Emergency Management will find itself under 22.4 feet of storm surge.

Lee’s not too worried about it, though. The city has a duplicate Office of Emergency Management in an undisclosed location.