[New York] (original title: Powerful Hurricanes and Northeasters: Threat to the Big Apple)

With our attention focused on Hurricane Katrina’s devastating blow to New Orleans and its surrounding areas, Hurricane Rita’s wreckage along the Texas and Louisiana coastlines, as well as Hurricane Wilma's destruction in Florida, it’s easy to forget that numerous American cities are at risk for severe damage from extreme weather events, including hurricanes and northeasters. One such metropolis is the United States’ most populous region, the New York metropolitan area, comprised of over 22 million people and encompassing 13,000 square miles (about 34,000 square kilometers).

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Concern about considerable loss of life arises because there are likely to be significant problems associated with evacuating New York City in the lead-up to extreme storms. Evacuation of the high-density regions near the flood-prone coastline would be extremely difficult because many evacuation routes, including both roads and public transportation, extend through areas that may be inundated with water. In addition, because many of the bridges connecting Manhattan to the mainland are elevated, they would respond to the wind effects of an approaching storm well before such winds would be felt at ground level. As a result, their use as evacuation routes would have to be restricted well before roads at ground level, further complicating an evacuation. The problem of unusable evacuation routes is compounded by the fact that, as of 2001, only 50% of households in New York City and 20% of households in Manhattan had access to their own vehicles, which would mean that a large percentage of the city’s population would need to be evacuated using potentially compromised public transportation systems.

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http://www.climate.org/topics/weather/new_york_severe_storm_threat.shtml