It's Raining Fish and Spiders by Bill Evans

seem, it’s not too surprising when you realize that many inner-city residents have spent their lives seeking shelter from blizzards, nor’easters, and extreme cold by utilizing the subway.

    The second problem is apathy—the generally held belief that a Category 3 storm will never hit the New York City area. And if it does, New Yorkers feel they will be able to go about their day and just deal with it. It’s a syndrome I call “I’m a New Yorker, and I gargle nails for breakfast!” New Yorkers are a tough breed, no doubt, but while they can shovel 30 inches of snow, no one can shovel the ocean.

    The devastation will be tremendous and catastrophic, to say the very least. Salt water from the Atlantic will pour into the subway system, killing it. The same ocean will destroy the underground communications systems for the largest and most important financial center in the world, Wall Street. A Category 3 storm will produce a storm surge of nearly 30 feet, higher if the storm arrives at high tide. That would put water in the streets up to midtown Manhattan. The water might reach a height of three stories on the buildings around lower Manhattan, in the area called the Battery and Wall Street.
    As the storm leaves, its winds would shift to the northeast, flooding the city from the north. Though the storm will move quickly, racing by at 45 mph, its devastation in this densely populated area would be extreme. It has the smell and feel of another Hurricane Katrina.

    New York City officials are well aware of this threat, but as I said, few have experience with such a monster. Officials have a plan that will involve evacuating the three million people who live in the most storm-vulnerable parts of the city. These will not exactly be three million happy-go-lucky-whistling-a-tune evacuees. They will be three million panicked people without a clue of what to expect. I guess that many New Yorkers who live right on the water, the “I gargle nails for breakfast” crowd, will not leave—like so many who tried to outlast Katrina in New Orleans.
    My nephew Nathan, a sergeant in the National Guard, said that in all his service to our country, in war and peace, he had never seen anything like the situation during the flooding of New Orleans. He actually had to draw his weapon to defend himself from a fellow U.S. citizen whom he was trying to get to leave a flooded home. The flood waters had risen to the roof of the home; he and his fellow soldiers had cut a hole in the roof to help the residents escape from the attic. The guardsmen were attacked by people armed with knives—people who apparently would rather drown in their home than be evacuated. Stranger things will happen in New York City. There’s way more people living there.
    My point in all of this is to say that people should have a plan of action for when the storm comes.
    Notice I did not say if the storm comes.
    Climatology shows that hurricanes hit New York City. There just may be a long period of time in between.
    It has happened before and it will happen again.
    Great Hurricane Web Sites >>>>
    www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/tcfaqHED.html
    www.2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/hurr/stages/cane/home.rxml
    www.nasa.gov/worldbook/hurricane_worldbook.html
    http://teachertech.rice.edu/Participants/louviere/hurricanes/stages.html
    www.weatherwizkids.com/hurricane1.html

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    Try This at Home!
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    Let’s Make It Rain!
    This is from the Weather Wiz Kids Web site ( www.weatherwizkids.com ). Since we’ve been talking about hurricanes in this chapter, let’s see how moisture condenses to make rain!
    MATERIALS:
    Glass mayonnaise or canning jar
    Plate (not a paper plate)
    Very hot water
    Ice cubes
    Index cards
    PROCESS:
    Pour about two inches of very hot water into the glass jar.
    Cover the jar with the plate and wait a few minutes before you perform the next step.
    Put the ice cubes on top of the plate.
    EXPLANATION:
    What