Hurricane Irene in Raritan Bay

I've listened to governors and mayors talk about mandatory evacuations in the coastal and low-lying areas of New York City, Long Island, and the Jersey shore. I've listened to news anchors and news reporters talk about the safety of the townships and communities affected by the evacuations. I've also listened to weather forecasters talk about the expected storm surges and flooding of these same areas.

With the exception of one weather forecaster, Lee Goldberg, on Eyewitness News WABC-7 New York, who has very briefly mentioned it a few times, no one that I've listened to has breathed a word about the bay that separates New Jersey and New York, Raritan Bay. Why do I bring attention to this?

The 12-mile long by body of water named Raritan Bay is shaped almost perfectly like a funnel, from east to west. If it weren't for the mile-wide thin strip of land called Sandy Hook, which juts out several miles from the northernmost reaches of the Jersey shore, Raritan Bay would be a perfectly-shaped funnel.

While Sandy Hook will act as a levee against the crashing Atlantic waters, the berm of land may hardly prove to be a speed bump to the 40-foot seas and extraordinarily high tidal surge Hurricane Irene brings with her. Hurricane Irene will move half of the Atlantic Ocean, so to speak, through Raritan Bay's large 8-mile opening, and easily over parts, if not much, of Sandy Hook; funneling untold amounts of water through the ever-decreasing width of the bay, piling and slamming it into the waiting shores of the Amboys (Perth Amboy and South Amboy) and Staten Island.

Causing even more tumult in the Raritan Bay will be the hurricane-rain-swollen flow from two already large rivers, the Raritan and Arthur Kill. Both rivers confluently empty into the small end of the bay, which is barely one mile wide. The flow of both of these rivers is diametrically opposed to the waves of water Hurricane Irene brings from the Atlantic Ocean: the hurricane pushing water inward from the south and east, while the rivers push water outward from the west and north.

The churning waters in Raritan Bay will rise and rise, and waves will crash every which way, including out of if its banks, like a dirty martini carelessly shaken out of its glass. Yes, the waters that Hurricane Irene is churning up the Eastern Seaboard are surely eroding and damaging all of the beaches and lands on which she throws them. However, nowhere up and down the Eastern Seaboard will you find Hurricane Irene's waters churned up more than you will in the large funnel-shaped bay, called Raritan Bay.

T. H. Pankey is an adventurer in NYC. With so much happening in NYC, and a predisposition toward being involved with good things, his experiences in the city have been as far-flung as simply riding the subway just to see new areas to dining in one of the city's finest restaurants in the heart of the city.