Look out New York neighbors a hurricane could be headed our way according to the Independent on Sunday which seems to have run the story twice!

Yes, the sister newspaper of the Independent (which three days ago called the latest hurricanes the “smoking gun” of global warming, ie, it’s all America’s fault) is now predicting that New York is next.

Apparently this could be one of the biggest hurricane seasons yet with two more months of hurricanes still to come:

Some of these storms could hit the US, and experts say New York could be the next city to be devastated. The area around the Big Apple is listed by the [US government's official National Hurricane] Center as the fifth most vulnerable in the country, after New Orleans, the Florida Keys, Tampa in Florida and Galveston in Texas, all targeted by hurricanes in the past two years.

Max Mayfield, director of the Center, told Congress that Katrina “will not be the last major hurricane to hit a vulnerable area, and New Orleans is not the only location vulnerable to a large disaster from a land-falling hurricane”.

Local experts say that such a catastrophe is “inevitable”, and the New York City authorities warn that it could bring a 30ft-high storm surge crashing into Manhattan.

Nowhere in the story does anyone actually say that New York is next. But if I am to understand the report correctly: since there is likely to be more storms this year, and since four of the five most vulnerable areas have been hit in the last two years, New York is all but assured to be hit by a catastrophic tidal wave. If only either story was longer than 300 words, I may have been able to find out more…

Like the fact that the last hurricane to hit the New York area was called Gloria (a category 1 hurricane), which struck in 1985. And that the last major hurricane to strike the area was a category 3 storm…in the autumn of 1938 (hmn, was global warming America’s fault then too?), and the last major storm before that was 117 years previously in 1821 (more a smoking musket than a smoking gun, don’t you think?)—the only hurricane in modern times known to have passed directly over parts of New York City (according to LiveScience.com).

Yes, there is a chance that New York could be struck by a hurricane. Every year there is a chance that New York could be hit by a hurricane. But, surely the fact that it hasn’t been struck by a hurricane in the last 20 years, or by a major hurricane in the last 70 years, or directly by a major hurricane in 180 years, makes it more likely than the fact that it hasn’t been struck in the last two.

At least the Independent stopped short of predicting the felling of New York’s skyscrapers like the boffins at icWales.

Scenes from the blockbuster film The Day After Tomorrow may prove to be uncomfortably close to the truth after American scientists rated New York as the fifth most hurricane-threatened area in the country

The film, which saw the city submerged by a giant tidal wave, could soon be replicated in real life, with potentially devastating consequences.

Nigel Rhodes, of Stormforce, warned that a hurricane any bigger than Katrina or Rita could bring the city’s famous skyscrapers crashing down, with many only designed to withstand a category three storm.

Thank god I live in Brooklyn.

A stunning piece of writing from one of America’s best journalists. Joan Didion writes about grief and loss following the death of her husband last year.

Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return. In the version of grief we imagine, the model will be “healing.” A certain forward movement will prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place.

When we anticipate the funeral we wonder about failing to “get through it,” to rise to the occasion, exhibit the “strength” that invariably gets mentioned as the correct response to death. We anticipate needing to steel ourselves for the moment: will I be able to greet people, will I be able to leave the scene, will I be able even to get dressed that day? We have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue. We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.

Link to full story here
Profile of Didion here

Most of the time I feel like I live in the capital of the world. But occasionally I’m transported back to the hillside in Cornwall that I left two years ago. And never have I felt more parochial than the other day when I read the following on the front page of the New York Times:

DEAL IS REACHED TO PUT TOILETS ON CITY STREETS: After more than a decade of false starts, New York City officials announced yesterday that they had selected a company to remake the city’s jumbled streetscape by providing aesthetic order to its thousands of bus shelters and newsstands and, perhaps most intriguing, installing 20 freestanding public toilets on city streets.

Wow. How soon before I read the following?

FLUSH WITH SUCCESS: Exeter New York has some of the finest four-star toilets in the country – according to the experts who judged the latest Loo of the Year Awards. The city entered four of its public toilets and, although they failed to win the ultimate five-star accolade, they received high praise.

The loos in King William Street Times Square and Paris Street Herald Square gained four stars, those in Blackboy Road Chinatown three stars, and in Whipton Village Road the East Village two stars.

Mike Trim, head of the city’s cleansing services, said: “We are very pleased with the results. Currently, we are about to refurbish the loos at the Quay Columbus Circle and this work will be starting next month.”

The toilets will be closed for a short time for the £24,000 $2.4 million project.

FRENCH RAISE ALERT LEVELS…

Following the events in London the French government announced
yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from ‘Run’ to
‘Hide’. The only two higher levels in France are ‘Surrender’ and
‘Collaborate’. The rise was precipitated by a recent fire which
destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralyzing their
military.

Updates from around Europe

The Italians have increased their alert level from “shouting excitedly”
to “elaborate military posturing”. Two more levels remain, “ineffective
combat operations” and “change sides”.

The Germans have also increased their alert state from “disdainful
arrogance” to “full dress-uniform and marching songs”. They have two
higher levels, “invade a neighbour” and “lose”.

Seeing this reaction in continental Europe the Americans have gone from
“isolationism” to “find somewhere ripe for regime change”. Their
remaining higher alert states are “take on the world” and “ask the
British for help”.

Finally here in GB we’ve gone from “pretend nothing’s happening” to
“make another cup of tea”. Our higher levels are “chin-up and remain
cheerful” and “win”.

UPDATE: I was reticent to post this joke in case it was somehow deemed to be in bad taste. I finally decided that since it alludes to real events firmly in Europe’s past, and since it was obviously written in good faith and with good humor, it would not offend.

I wish the same could be said for the following—a post on The Gutter which refers to the people being helped by my good friends at Architecture for Humanity as “crack hos”.