How much worse could it be...?

[jakethebake]

Suppose a storm or other disaester the magnitude of Katrina hit Manhattan instead of New Orleans. How much worse would it be (if any) in terms of loss of life? Many New Yorkers don't own cars, correct? Would more choose to stay put? Suppose weather people were 100% sure this would hit, and said as much. Would people believe them? Would 9/11 have an impact? Would it make people fear more? Or have the opposite, "We can withstand anything" result on their egos? Is New York now better prepared for emergencies? How big is the indigent population relative to New Orleans? Thoughts?

NY isn't sunk below sea level like NO. It wouldn't be nearly as bad in NY.

[jakethebake]

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NY isn't sunk below sea level like NO. It wouldn't be nearly as bad in NY.

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Assume some kind of natural disaster that was equivalent. What I was hoping to get at was what factors, aside from the event itself would play into the number of people that died.

[Matt Williams]

If a Cat. 4 or 5 hurricane hit NYC it would be even worse than what NO is going through right now. First off, you would have to deal with a 25 foot storm surge. Ask the people 5 miles inland in Mississippi what that must be like. Maybe you could be high up in a skyscraper, right? Wrong. Winds at the surface would be 150 to 170 mph. 10 stories up, try 225+ mph winds.
In 1985, Hurricane Gloria came up the coast. By the time the storm got to NJ/NY, the storm was travelling over 30 mph, and the worst part of the storm hit at low tide. FEMA and the NHC reported had the storm hit during high tide, NYC would have had a 10 foot storm surge flooding the subways, airports, ect. This was a tropical storm by the time it hit NYC, not a Cat. 4 or 5.

[HesseJam]

Way more people and at a higher density. What would you expect?

[The Armchair]

The hardest problem would not really be how to evacuate, but rather where to go.

Getting off Manhattan Island is trivial. During the August '03 blackout, thousands upon thousands were walking over every bridge there was, and that took little to no time at all. If there were such an evacuation as you described, people would find a way out. The city would probably ban all cars from roads after a certain hour, and we'd have significant bus service running from all exit points from Manhattan to designated shelter areas.

But where would they go? The Northeast is much more compact than the Gulf area -- anything that would hurt Manhattan to that degree would almost certainly have a similar effect on the other boroughs, NJ, CT, Westchester, etc. Probably Philadelphia and Albany, and maybe Boston too. (Biloxi MS is 90 miles from NO; Philly is about 100 from NY.) It seems that this would be the real cause of problem.

For example, I'm a Manhattan resident. If there were, god forbid, a localized event that required us to leave, my family could go to two different places in CT and one in NJ where family would gladly take us in. But if the event were more general, affecting those areas as well, forget it.

[youtalkfunny]

Don't forget guys, that as soon as the wind/rain stopped, the water would recede, and the rescue effort could begin.

The property damage would still be enormous, but you wouldn't have a week's worth of drama like we do in this case.