Hurricanes of New York: Seeking Shelter from the Storm

On August 21, 2009 every beach in the City of New York was closed before noon under instruction from the Mayor's office. Warm and inviting though the waters were, they were off-limits even to hardy surfers. Police cars enforced order throughout with patrols on the boardwalk and on the hard-packed sand of the beach.

Every single one of Rockaway's fields were covered in a sea of red flags and lifeguards were carefully checking their emergency medical equipment while keeping an eye on the roiling waters. I saw the lifeguard in the chair nearest me hoist a backboard onto his chair so that there would be no delay if an unwary patron with a spine broken through the sheer force of the sea needed to be secured. That day red flags sprouted on every bit of sand in New York City.

How close was this deadly storm? Five hundred miles from shore off the coast of Bermuda when the beaches were ordered shut. Although it seemed insane, the waves were already stirred into white cream and storm surges of 8 to 10 feet were expected before the evening was out.

For city dwellers sheltered from the reality of nature's deadly grasp, the whole thing seemed like an exercise in over-kill. Although the New York Parks Department commissioner was about to hold a press conference on the Boardwalk at 116 Street with the mayor in possible attendance, all-knowing teenagers and young men in their twenties dismissed the idea of a hurricane in New York with a snort.

Yet New York City has a serious hurricane history, albeit long before the time of these skeptics. A hurricane in 1893 that hit not even a mile South of where the teens laughed off the very notion of a hurricane sank an entire Island large enough to have restaurants and resorts and to have been a favorite retreat of the Taminent Party elite. Hog Island, an off-shore island over a mile long just off Far Rockaway vanished in a single day in the August hurricane of 1893. Bits and pieces of crockery emerge from the Edgemere's surf to this day to the extreme puzzlement of the natives.

Then of course, there was the Long Island Express of 1938, a hurricane that moved too quickly for the forecasters to christen. When I was a child spending summers in Long Island in the 1960s, beaches with smashed wharves still stood silent witness to that nameless debacle. This was a storm with the power to reshape all of Long Island, to carve new inlets and erase others. And yet, along with the name never granted has come an amnesia that allows inhabitants of an island city to laugh at hurricanes.

Although this nameless storm was a mere category 3, not in the same league as the category 4s and 5s recently suffered by such cities as New Orleans, Houston and Galveston, this "small" storm caused

700 deaths, 708 injured
4,500 homes, cottages, farms destroyed; 15,000 damaged
26,000 destroyed automobiles
20,000 miles of electrical power and telephone lines downed
1,700 livestock and up to 750,000 chickens killed
$2,610,000 worth of fishing boats, equipment, docks, and shore plants damaged or destroyed
Half the entire apple crop destroyed at a cost of $2 million
(figures are a direct quote from http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/38hurricane/)

All of this when Long Island was primarily rural.

Once, when I was swimming in Robert Moses, a barrier beach located on Long Island's Fire Island, one of the State Police demonstrated his sure-fire way of getting recalcitrant homeowners to evacuate to safety. Rather than attempting to explain to the stubborn that it was not possible to hold the walls and floors of one's home together through willpower in the face of 200 mile per hour winds, the police officer asked the name of each hold-out's next of kin.

When the puzzled homeowner asked why, he was informed that the police chief had no intention of unnecessarily risking the lives of his men to rescue those put in danger through their own foolishness. Instead, the homeowners would have to brave the perils of the storm unaided. The list was for benefit of their heirs. His technique was quite effective.

Hurricane Bill is the first hurricane of New York City's 2009 hurricane season, but it won't be the last. Due to the unique geography of our city, we are ranked by the Office of Emergency Management http:www.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/ready/hurricane_guide.shtml as the third most imperiled city for hurricanes after New Orleans and Miami.

Although panic is unnecessary, complacency is unwise. Mother Nature always has the last laugh.

If you like this story you may also like:

How to Stay Safe in the Surf (this article explains what riptides are and how to survive them)
www.associatedcontent.com/article/1997192/how_to_stay_safe_in_the_surf.html

Keep your Child Alive at the Beach (this article discusses basic surf safety for families with young children and suggests possible options to entertain them when the surf is treacherous)
www.associatedcontent.com/article/2041109/keep_your_child_alive_at_the_beach.html

I also write on a variety of outdoor related topics. Please see my contributor link at associatedcontent.com:
www.associatedcontent.com/user/583548/mary_finn.html

Sources:

www.nytimes.com/1997/03/18/nyregion/queens-spit-tried-to-be-a-resort-but-sank-in-a-hurricane.html

www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/38hurricane/