FWIW, I live in downtown Jersey City, and I'm pretty satisfied with the way it was handled. The mandatory evacuation orders skipped over my place and most of downtown, which has a small elevation above sea level, and covered only the very lowest-lying areas along the rivers that were at risk of ocean flooding. And they were at risk. We were watching the readout from the water-level gauge at the Battery, and man, for a few hours there early Sunday morning, it looked like it was headed over the seawall. Even at that late hour, some very serious weather nerds I know and/or follow online thought there would be serious salt-water flooding in lower Manhattan and the waterfront around the harbor at the 8 a.m. high tide. It got pretty close. 

All those reprimanding those that didn't take precautions are doing so because they fell for the media hype. They didnt use common sense, and instead relied on what the media and Bloomberg fed you. Instead of realizing it was just going to be a tropical storm, and unless you lived around a bunch of old trees, you really had nothing to worry about.

So yes YOU are a lemming. You felt the rush and hype, went out and spent all your money on bottles of water, and in the end, realized you were nothing but a darn fool.

"Better safe than sorry?", more like "Better think for myself than have Bloomberg (who has a lot at stake on his response after he fucked up Snowmaggedon) tell me what to think."

"You felt the rush and hype, went out and spent all your money on bottles
of water, and in the end, realized you were nothing but a darn fool."

I bought 2 gallons of water at $1 apiece.  I went grocery shopping like normal, with an emphasis on non-perishable foods.  The storm wasn't bad, so now I have groceries for the week and plenty of water for the next snowmageddon.

From what I read (correct me if I'm wrong) only about 8,000 people evacuated to shelters, which is a really small number.  I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that most of those people were elderly, low income, or people who aren't necessarily savvy with hurricane predictions.  You can't expect everyone to log on to the weather channel and make their own educated assessments about the what the storm is going to do.  Sometimes people have to rely on what they're told by TV personalities or the mayor.

I don't feel like a "darn fool" because I bought some extra food and water.  Maybe some people who evacuated feel like fools, but I think if they were afraid enough to evacuate, they're glad they did even though nothing happened. 

They should all be forced to watch 24 hours of Hurricane Katrina footage - no one's bragging there.

Ok -- let's have a story about people who got hurt because they followed orders and evacuated.    Some probably got in fender benders or worse. Some strained themselves lifting suitcases.  Others suffered from stress attacks from having to go to a shelter. Divorce proceedings started because people were forced to live with in-laws. Some suffer great guilt because other people will never get to rub it in their faces.

These people ignored evacuation orders while I took precautions, but I can't really be a scold about it because everything turned out fine. But then if they had been had lost their houses or been killed or stranded in the storm, I wouldn't be able to gloat because then it would 'insensitive' to the 'humanitarian disaster' or whatever. 

These people always fucking win when it comes to gloating!  I will always prepare and live through these disasters, but I will never get to rub it in their fucking smirking faces like I want.

Regardless of how these people arrived at the decision to stay put, unless you live literally at sea level (hint: you can fish in your backyard) then Category 1 storm = who-gives-a-fuck and Tropical Storm/Depression = business-as-usual

Battery park city is 'literally' at sea level, protected by relatively low sea walls. It's also built on landfill mostly excavated from the WTC site. Not the most stable piece of land in the world. 

Seems to be a lot of "Nothing happened to ME = This was no big deal and everyone overreacted" going around. Meanwhile, the death count is at 35, tying Irene with Hugo as the 4th most deadly hurricane to hit the US.

Unfortunately, now its up to 38

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...

Even Biden knew Irene wasn’t going to live up to all the fear mongering (he was playing golf in DE on Saturday), and he isn’t right about anything! 

The city had no choice to but to order evacuations early on. On Friday, when they finally got around to ordering the mandatory evacuations, the storm was slated to be a low category 2/high category 1 storm when it hit NY which would have caused significant flooding in quite a few areas. In the end, the storm weakened substantially by the time it hit, but they were going with the best information they had at the time. If they had waited until Saturday to see that the storm was weakening, it may have been too late to order an evacuation if the storm was in fact NOT weakening.

NY'ers can never be happy. That's just the way it is.

Yes, those of us in Manhattan lucked out, but plenty of people from Queens and Staten Island are definitely not sorry they evacuated. Please people, they are NYers too! Also, when most of the important decisions had to be made (so they could be implemented in time), it was still a Category 2 storm. I, for once, agree with the Mayor when he said "prepare for the worst, pray for the best."

who cares if flooding is bad in NJ, North Carolina, Vermont, Massachusetts, or Staten Island? Irene's got nothing on the Manhattan hipster elite!!!

/s

Don't think there are many hipsters in Battery Park City. From what I can see, most BPC residents actually take baths and don't wear knit caps and long-sleeve hoodies when it's 92 degrees outside.

Sorry hipsters, I took the bait; couldn't help myself  :-/

Dear gothamist: While it may be okay for the rest of us mouth-breathing buffoons to take cheap shots at each other in the comments, as a quasi news organization you guys might want to grow up a little and elevate the discourse. Just sayin'.

You're new to Gothamist, aren't you?

Maybe next time they won't be so lucky. It's like driving on the highway over 100mph and gloating how nothing bad happened.

People will gloat over anything, even over the fact that nature decided not to kick them in the teeth.  I guarantee that these same people would be the first in line to sue the city if shit really hit the fan.