Semi-Charmed Life

Hurricane Irene

This weekend, NYC was supposed to experience one of the biggest hurricanes that the city has ever seen in years. It was expected to be bad enough that residents of low lying areas such as Coney Island were mandated to evacuate the area and the MTA made the move to shut down operations of all trains and buses for the entire weekend. Supermarkets were cleaned out of bottled water as New Yorkers stocked up on food, water and other necessities in anticipation of the worst.

The anticipation of the hurricane was a little intense. With the city basically shut down, the streets were eerily quiet on Saturday. At a certain point, it was just "damnit Irene, where are you? Just come already so I can move on with my life."

Rain poured intermittently on Saturday and around 9pm, that is when the hurricane finally "started." It pretty much lasted throughout the night. I had slept through most of it as I had passed out in bed around midnight.

The next morning, as people awoke to survey the damage, it was realized that the hurricane had been less destructive than anticipated. The winds were not as strong as predicted, and the most damage came from the heavy rains, which caused heavy flooding in some areas. The basement of my parents house was a victim to the rains, as it was submerged in over ten inches of water. People posted pictures of downed trees all throughout the city, and some people had lost power. Overall though, New York City was pretty much spared.

New Yorkers being New Yorkers however, instead of being grateful that NYC made it through this hurricane relatively unscathed, seem to be disappointed that the hurricane did not do more damage. The collective sentiment seems to be that there were too much hurricane hype. New York City was shut down for this?!

This makes me a little puzzled. Would they have preferred a more destructive hurricane? It's obvious the hurricane did not perform to their expectations. Some people complained that it was very "over-hyped," and that the massive city-wide shutdown and evacuation plans were too much. I guess it was a little too much that the city prepared itself on data based meteorological evidence and satellite data. It passed over the Bahamas as a category 3 hurricane, with a trajectory leading right through NY, so it seems a little unreasonable that the city would react based on that.

I remember after the blizzard this past winter, people were asking for Bloomberg's head due to lack of preparation and city response. I guess you can never win with New Yorkers. You do too little and you get lynched. Do too much and people think it's unnecessary.

Somewhere out there the sea gods are cursing themselves for having let us go so easily.

A lot of people are having a laugh at the perceived disparity between the East Coast's frantic preparations for Hurricane Irene and the storm's relative lack of force. But just because entire buildings weren't washed away along the seaboard doesn't mean that the precautions were all for naught. Irene did indeed kill people, including an 11-year-old boy who was struck by a tree, and, as you can see from this slideshow of post-hurricane pictures from New York City, it had the potential to kill more. Just ask anyone who lived through Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans six years ago today: Superfluous measures are always preferable to too few measures.

A destroyed tree in Jackson Heights, Queens.

photo via (cc) Flickr user JoeInQueens

A mudslide covers the tracks on Metro-North's Hudson line. A former MTA employee who called the MTA shutdown an "overreaction" might have said otherwise if he'd known that passengers could have been seriously injured had the trains been running.

photo via (cc) Flickr user MTAPhotos

Floodwaters overtaking the tracks of Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line at Ossining.

photo via (cc) Flickr user MTAPhotos

Floodwaters cover a subway yard in upper Manhattan.

photo via (cc) Flickr user MTAPhotos

Metro-North's Harlem line flooded at Valhalla. 

photo via (cc) Flickr user MTAPhotos

A giant felled tree on Roosevelt Island.

photo via (cc) Flickr user _snapp

Downed power lines on Metro-North's Harlem line.

photo via (cc) Flickr user MTAPhotos

Slideshow: Aftermath Photos Prove Irene Was No Laughing Matter