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May 26, 2006 6:43 am US/Eastern
Hurricane Evacuation Plans For NYC Areas
With Many Storms Expected, City Prepping For Worst
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ―
As hurricane season approaches, city officials are updating evacuation plans and scheduling drills to test their tactics, the emergency management commissioner said Thursday.
Next month, senior-level officials at the police and fire departments, transit agencies and others will stage a tabletop drill. Later in the summer, they plan a field exercise, Commissioner Joseph Bruno told the City Council during a budget hearing.
The simulations are designed to teach officials to make quick decisions about how and when to evacuate certain areas of New York, with particular focus on special-needs populations like hospitals and nursing homes, said Jarrod Bernstein, a spokesman for the Office of Emergency Management.
OEM Hurricane Evacuation Zone Finder
Hurricane Season Could Hit Our Area Hard May 22: Very Active 2006 Hurricane Season PredictedEye Of The Storm: Understanding HurricanesDuring the field drill, officials plan to set up an evacuation center and several shelters to test how the facilities might operate when deluged with people. City employees will most likely play the roles of the hurricane victims and evacuees.
In a real hurricane, authorities would open dozens of evacuation centers and hundreds of shelters citywide.
The city's highest-risk zones include lower Manhattan, Brooklyn's Coney Island, the Rockaways in Queens and the perimeter of Staten Island. Officials say 30-foot-high storm surges could drown those areas during a major storm.
The most recent major hurricane in the area was Gloria in September 1985. It caused thousands of people to evacuate their homes on waterfront areas.
Among the worst in city history came in 1938. The storm, known as the Long Island Express in the days before hurricanes received official names, was responsible for more than 600 deaths.
(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
