hurricane coming...

Do not vote for the billionaire, no matter how inviting it seems to dip into his financial 'expertise'

I'm in a Zone C hurricane evac zone in brooklyn, but right across the street it's Zone B (worse).

stay on your side imo

What's funny is that is also the exact dividing line for gentrification in my part of willamsburg right now (across the street = 'luxury condos')

there must be a hurricaine drain in the middle

i mean maybe it's no coincidence-- the reason gentrif peters out here is because this is where the 5 and 6 story tenements with tons of rent-controlled family residents begin. Maybe it's also less hurricane vulnerable because of the same mass of stocky bldgs?

i dunno what the actual dif between zones is but it makes sense to build upscale condos on cheaper land for wider profit margins..

Higher elevation, I would think?? All the flood zone areas are low-lying.

yeah that's what i'd assume.. lower = more flood prone = less valuable = better target for developers

its all a conspiracy - the rich dont want to be bothered with evacuations

Um the problem is that the low-lying coastal areas are also "water view" material, so actually a ton of expensive high-rises/luxury converted lofts/lol yuppies kind of buildings get built on them.

yeah its the rich kidz who will be evacuating sooner than the dominican families per the zones, sorry if i gave the opposite impression

The NFIP amounts to a type of anti-environmental socialism. Scott Faber of American Rivers, a conservation organization, observed, “Prior to the 1960s, you didn’t have much development in flood-prone areas because you couldn’t find any insurer crazy enough to underwrite it. But the federal government came along and said it is okay—we are going to make it financially possible for you to live in a flood plain. The effect of this has been much more dramatic in coastal areas, where we have seen a huge boom in coastal development in the last 30 years.”5

The primary effect of federal flood insurance is that far more property is now damaged by floods than would have occurred if the insurance had not made it possible to build in flood-prone areas.The Long Island Regional Planning Board in 1989 complained that federal flood insurance “in effect encourages a cycle of repeated flood losses and policy claims.”6 And, especially in places like Long Island, the program underwrites the vacation homes of the wealthy.

Consider the experience of Topsail Island, a 26-mile island off the North Carolina coast right in the middle of “hurricane alley.” At a time when North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt was trying to discourage rebuilding on the island, FEMA came in and deluged the area with more than $100 million to rebuild private and public facilities after two hurricanes hit the island in 1996. In 1998, the island was hit by another hurricane—and FEMA rushed in to spend another $10 million to repair things. The 1998 damage was greater than it otherwise would have been because FEMA had extended the sewer system after the previous hurricane, thus opening the door to new development.7 Federal relief spending over a three-year period amounted to more than $10,000 for each permanent resident on the island.8 “The original development wasn’t sound, and now for the third time in three years, we’re going to have to come in and provide assistance. There’s very little common sense,’’ observed Kevin Moody of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.9 FEMA paid almost the entire cost of rebuilding local government buildings and infrastructure, and federal flood insurance paid the large majority of the cost of rebuilding private homes. The News and Observer in Raleigh noted that “the taxpayer-financed (FEMA) bailout [after the preceding hurricane] has reimbursed resort towns for just about any piece of public property that blew away in the storm. . . . (It) has undermined years of efforts to discourage unwise development.”10

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/uncle-sams-flood-machine/

its been insanity for years but what can they do now just say "forget it"

it could be phased out but the only people who stand to benefit are "all taxpayers" and there are plenty of special interests who count on the NFIP so no that will never ever happen. The insanity will continue, and I'll keep drinking coldbeers on Topsail Island in hot tubs newer than the last hurricane.

Considering that my street in Hoboken was under a foot of water a couple weeks ago from a fairly average storm, I'm not looking forward to this.

they should end the program right this second to avoid hurricaine Irenes catgina attack!

Kind of psyched about the chance to build a coracle...

Oh why couldn't it have been real ;_;

http://www.mediaite.com/online/wait-is-that-really-a-shark-swimming-in-a-puerto-rican-street/

Kind of psyched about the chance to build a coracle...

Was thinking about buying a large plastic wash-tub or an inflatable children's pool before the stores sell out.

Looks like no way the Carolinas or the northeast coast will avoid a hit. Good luck, guys!

have fun in florida!

why does weather.com still only have an 80$ chance of rain on sunday if apparently I'm gonna die in a hurricane

%

still undecided if i'm going to camp out this weekend with my parents inland in central NJ ... or stick it out in Hoboken so close to the Hudson River (and hoping that there's enough space left in one of the municipal garages so that my car doesn't get fucked up by water or flying debris).

are your folks that bad?

god just doesn't want you to have a car

haha ... no. it's more that they're not really safe from flooding either (they're about a mile from the Raritan River and their part of the state gets hit hard by flooding on a regular basis).

more accurately, they live on a hill so their house doesn't get flooded out (and they have a good sump-pump system in the basement). but when the river floods they are essentially living on an island surrounded by a moat ... which could make getting home a problem.

this shit just keeps moving farther westard, looks like my hometown of binghamton might get as much of an impact as i will at school now!

we're gonna get fucking SLAMMED.

hurricane party

Gonna eat everything in the freezer just in case the power goes out.

Popsicles first, then the corn-dogs I'd never admit to owning, followed by 16 cups of chicken consommé, two Tupperwares of char siu pork, some haricot vert, maybe an intermission of jambalaya, a jugo with peaches and fifty-three flavors of half-eaten ice cream pints, some sancocho from god-knows-when, and a freezer-burned bag of blueberries for finale.

rip outer banks/tangier island etc

heh. is it wrong i'm a little excited?

fuck man i just bought a buncha groceries last weekend! alla those gonna go bad now! $_$

you're in CT amirite k3vin?!?

man I was planning on going to ct if shit got bad in ny

you're in CT amirite k3vin?!?

― Murdered plants communicate with a bowl of shrimps in another room! (Eisbaer), Friday, August 26, 2011 12:06 AM (2 minutes ago)

correct, basically uconn campus

heh. is it wrong i'm a little excited?

I feel like these kinda disasters are weirdly exciting to people in the modern sorta boring world cause they're so unpredictable and out of the blue and you actually see them w/ your own eyes

whereras like 100 years ago, nobody would be like "woo hurricane!!"

I don't even think the concept 'woo' existed 100 years ago really

hey did you guys see that nate silver predicts that this hurricane is going to cause TEN BILLION DOLLARS worth of damage in nyc, lol

my mom called me earlier to remind me to "FILL UP YOUR BATHTUB IN CASE YOU NEED TO FLUSH YOUR TOILET"

i can't tell if this is hurricane preparedness or what

Have ppl started raiding suprtmarkets and stripping 'em bare of cat food and plenty ripe pineapples?

jesus trayce it's not like it's nuclear war

we're stealing oranges

http://i1011.photobucket.com/albums/af231/ExquisitExamplE/Simpsons08x08-HurricaneNeddyrl14-24.jpg

think ill watch that episode in honor of our impending doom

we've tried nothin' and we're all out of ideas gets in my head like once a month at least

"Look, I'm a surfer!"

> Ooh maybe that means the waves will be good at the beach on Sat afternoon.

Exactly what I'm thinking ENBB. Best time based on predictions here is Saturday early morning daybreak before winds get too heavy, mostly overhead 7 to 8 footers with occasional even larger sets. Sunday will be too windy and choppy to surf, but wow, triple-overheaders (15 ft.) on the mid-atlantic east coast, likely to be too choppy to surf. Even if it wasn't - I'm fearless, but I'm not insane; and this is way beyond my capabilities.

They're shutting down highways and evacuating beachfronts everywhere though - may not be possible to even get there.