Yikes!

Daily Kos: New Yorkers are Sitting Ducks:

New Yorkers are Sitting Ducks
by Andrew Rasiej [Subscribe]
Fri Sep 9th, 2005 at 09:26:27 EDT

After New Orleans and Miami, New York City is the third major city that forecasters consider vulnerable to major hurricane strikes. So it's not too soon to ask, what if NYC were hit by a category 4 hurricane? How would residents of the South Bronx or East New York escape?

If a category 4 hurricane hit New York dead on, the New York City Hurricane Evacuation Map predicts the South Bronx and northern Queens would be severely flooded, along with most of southern Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. In Manhattan everything below Broome Street will be inundated with flood water. The Hudson would reach Seventh Ave, and the East River would surge to First Ave.

The map shows the Atlantic Ocean storm surge reaching as far inland as Flatbush, just south of Prospect Park, with Howard Beach under 31 feet of water.

Meteorologists say that this is not a question of if, but when.