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Yeah I agree. High heat and humidity is bad but freezing weather with no heat in the home IMO feels worse.
High heat and humidity is like a playground for bacteria growth though.
Just lying in my bed with the heat off in the fall is annoying to me. Being in a home, apartment, or housing project, with no Heat during the winter in the Northern US must be hell.
Why the comparison? I don't think folks making the comparison are trying to say that Sandy was as bad or worse than Katrina.
I think Katrina was sooooo devastating, and such an emergency response failure that it holds the record for being the worst natural disaster in the US in our modern era. Therefore it's the benchmark. All disasters for a generation afterward will be measured up against Katrina.
Why the comparison? I don't think folks making the comparison are trying to say that Sandy was as bad or worse than Katrina.
I think Katrina was sooooo devastating, and such an emergency response failure that it holds the record for being the worst natural disaster in the US in our modern era. Therefore it's the benchmark. All disasters for a generation afterward will be measured up against Katrina.
I was thinking about a post to this, and what you said put it. I'm a lifelong NYer, and I am quite awed, surprised and saddened by the extent and duration of the damage in the Rockaways (a place I used to know well as my dad and paternal grandparents are from there), Staten Island, and the Jersey Shore; but I think to compare on an exact level to Katrina minimizes that much greater event. While many in the above areas lost their homes, a comparison to Katrina would be millions of locals moving out of town for years and miles and miles of neighborhoods being no more (OK there seems to be some of this from Sandy, but if you look against the map, it is a much smaller geography than Katrina).
On the other hand, the much higher population of where Sandy hit does start to make it a little more comparable, even if it was a very strong Category 1 vs. a Category 3. Also, the extent of the high wind field is historic for a US hurricane.
I think the real significance of Sandy is that many experts have long said that while a significant hurricane in metro NYC is rare compared to say Florida or New Orleans, it is far from an impossibility and Sandy did a lot of what many of those experts predicted all these years (i.e. the shorefront would have "Katrina" style obliteration, the subways would flood, evacautions would be complicated by the need for bridge closures, massive long-term blackouts, the subway bridge connecting the Rockaways to the rest of Queens would be destroyed). Forgetting even the possibility of "global warming's" effect on this storm, it is not unprecedented, did you know:
1) A category 1 hurricane landfalled on Atlantic City in 1903, and in the Rockaways in 1893. Damage was much less than Sandy because: A) the storms themselves were smaller in diameter, and B) much much less population and development.
2) The 1938 Category 3 was still a disaster on the level of Sandy. NYC itself had sustained winds of 75 mph and the subways flooded and the lower half of Manhattan was completely blacked out for days (and the rest of the area) had significant blackouts too. Had it landfalled where Sandy did instead of in western Suffolk County, it would've had Katrina level damage then, and much more with today's population growth and development.
3) In 1821 what was believe to be a storm similar in strength to the 1938 hurricane landfalled on Brooklyn, Staten Island and lower Manhattan. The storm surge record that was broken with Sandy was from way back in that storm! Imagine that storm today, and certainly no "global warming" then.
4) "Sandy" could've occurred on October 15, 1954. A much stronger hurricane, Hazel, had very similar "weird conditions", but it did it's "left hook" into North Carolina instead of New Jersey. It still produced a 113 mph wind gust at Battery Park and in TORONTO, CANADA was still the strength of Sandy in NJ. Imagine if the "left turn" occurred where Sandy did.
5) And I think at least a few people on here remember Gloria in 1985 (ironically, it was the first of a few years that I was living in the Albany, NY area, so I didn't fully experience that storm). If that struck at high tide instead of low and landfalled further west, it could've been at least equal to Sandy (and it was still quite significant for the easternmost 2/3 of Long Island).
My real hope is that this storm taught our region a big lesson about future preparedness.......
I was thinking about a post to this, and what you said put it. I'm a lifelong NYer, and I am quite awed, surprised and saddened by the extent and duration of the damage in the Rockaways (a place I used to know well as my dad and paternal grandparents are from there), Staten Island, and the Jersey Shore; but I think to compare on an exact level to Katrina minimizes that much greater event. While many in the above areas lost their homes, a comparison to Katrina would be millions of locals moving out of town for years and miles and miles of neighborhoods being no more (OK there seems to be some of this from Sandy, but if you look against the map, it is a much smaller geography than Katrina).
On the other hand, the much higher population of where Sandy hit does start to make it a little more comparable, even if it was a very strong Category 1 vs. a Category 3. Also, the extent of the high wind field is historic for a US hurricane.
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No no no no. Don't even try. This is not a question of NYers or NJers being more important than New Orleanians. I know the media wants to hype but really, YOU HAVE NO IDEA. So please just stop.
I moved to NOLA from DC and I get it. If something bad happens in DC it makes the national news. If something HORRIBLE happens in New Orleans it makes the news, but people start comparing it to misery in DC (NYC/NJ/LA pick your more important place.) One of my friends said the media operates on a 1 to 100 principle. One hurt New Yorker is like 100 hurt New Orleanians. Now you are trying to say "oh wait our cat 1 hurricane was as bad as the WORST DISASTER IN THE LAST 20 YEARS." Perhaps that is due to the "1 to 100" principle. Go ahead and say it-- you guys think your hardship is much worse than anyone elses.
No no no no. Don't even try. This is not a question of NYers or NJers being more important than New Orleanians. I know the media wants to hype but really, YOU HAVE NO IDEA. So please just stop.
I moved to NOLA from DC and I get it. If something bad happens in DC it makes the national news. If something HORRIBLE happens in New Orleans it makes the news, but people start comparing it to misery in DC (NYC/NJ/LA pick your more important place.) One of my friends said the media operates on a 1 to 100 principle. One hurt New Yorker is like 100 hurt New Orleanians. Now you are trying to say "oh wait our cat 1 hurricane was as bad as the WORST DISASTER IN THE LAST 20 YEARS." Perhaps that is due to the "1 to 100" principle. Go ahead and say it-- you guys think your hardship is much worse than anyone elses.
Confused, I don't think she/he has that attitude at all. New York, at least in the guise of the Times, has devoted plenty of attention to our situation. I think the above poster who said that Katrina is the benchmark has it spot on.
yea the population and infrastructure differences make numbers to numbers comparison pretty difficult to apply usefully. But its not hard to ascertain the sort of level Katrina was on. And figure it down to the individual and it's pretty clear that Katrina was the worst natural disaster in the nation's history. And there's was so many people in charge at fault that recovery won't happen like it should have.
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