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Why leave all the disaster scenarios to Hollywood or non-fiction TV programming (like the scary East Coast Tsunami program on the History Channel)? New York City, along with the Rockefeller Foundation and Architecture for Humanity New York has created a design competition for "Post-Disaster Provisional Housing."
According to the What If NYC website, the Big Apple is considered among the top three cities in the United States vulnerable to the destructive effects of storm surge from a hurricane. So it's natural for city ask various designers to develop temporary housing for a (fictional) neighborhood called "Prospect Shore" - which has with 115,000 residents (who speak 21 languages), a mile of coastline, an elevated highway, two subway lines and much more - after it's been hit by a storm.
The website for the project has lots of maps and hypothetical timelines detailing the kind of damage there would be. Here are a few maps:
Registration for the competition opens on October 15, submissions begin in November and the competition closes in December. Ten winning and ten honorable mention designs will be announced in January 2008. The judges are NYC's Commissioner David Burney of the Department of Design and Construction that includes Enrique Norten of TEN Arquitectos, OEM Commissioner Joseph Bruno, Paul Freitag of Jonathan Rose Companies, LLC, artist Mary Miss, engineer Guy Nordenson of Guy Nordenson and Associates, and Richard Plunz of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
It's unclear whether the designs will be incorporated into the city's emergency plans; the Mayor said, "We don't have any idea what kinds of solutions will be submitted. There isn't an easy answer. I don't think anybody has tried to address this before." And we thought this graphic about how trailer housing would not really help (if usual means of city housing were wiped out) was interesting.
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Thurman William Mathis has a great story on hurricanes and emergency preparedness in this weeks' Gotham Gazette, if you want to know even more about disaster planning in New York City.
-Amanda
PS, I work at the Gotham Gazette, so I think all our stories are great.
Solution:
Everyone moves back to the Midwest and crashes on their parents couch/basement.
What a load of BS. Like this is ever going to happen. And just where is Prospect Shore anyway? WTF? Get real.
*live in fear*
To begin with Joe Bruno, the OEM commissioner, couldn't figure out how to put out an office waste paper can fire with a 10,000 gpm pumper parked outside his office. He is an ex fire commissioner and no one really took him seriously when he was suppose to be doing his job. Maybe Ben Ward and Ed Koch, but no one else.
The guy's all smoke and mirrors and no brains.
Wow! A $10,000 award for coming up with solutions for a potential multi multi billion dollar problem. Isn't that why we pay taxes for these fools that sit around waiting for the apocalypse? What do these people do day in and day out? Order out for doughnuts?
New York witnessed their great response a few months back with the Con Ed blackouts. They don't have a clue.
Hell, we don't even need a monster hurricane for a major disaster. A well-placed Cat 1 or Cat 2, making landfall on eastern long island during high tide would swamp hundreds of multi-million dollar homes and even wash out parts of Montauk Highway in the Napeague Bay area. The insurance losses would be quite amazing...
Calm down people!!
I used to live in Florida a decade ago. Yes hurricanes are destructive and have winds of 150 miles an hour, but the storm itself only travels about 12 miles an hour. You'll have at least a couple of days to get your things and move. Be thankful that this type of natural disaster moves slowly, appears clearly on radar, and has several days delay before it dumps its payload.
If only earthquakes, tsunamis and the like also gave us such warnings.....
#7 - I have no doubt that New Orleans residents (past and present) would find your thoughts reassuring.
#8, exactly. People have to leave when there's a big hurricane coming. Please take it seriously, do not try to "ride it out." I've known a couple friends who rode out a Cat 4 and they're lucky to have lived. If you stay it could kill you, especially when there are levees involved, like in New Orleans. My point was: Hurricane coming=plenty of time to leave.
New Orleans was a disaster because of political and social-economic reasons, not because a hurricane instantly appeared out of nowhere and surprised everyone. New Orleans' local government failed the people who didn't have the means or money to leave. If they simply bussed everyone out of the city, there would have been no loss of life.