
New York City Is on the Verge of Disaster - 1PlayerOne
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/why-new-york-city-is-on-the-verge
======
btilly
This is a beautiful example of why there is a natural frequency to preventable
disasters.

In the aftermath of a preventable disaster, there is will to implement
policies and changes to prevent the next one. However the longer it has been
since the last, or the safer things seem, the harder it is to maintain those
policies. This slide will continue until disaster strikes. Which creates
political will to avoid it.

A first disaster may be side by those with influence. But a series of them
will undermine their excuses and eventually result in action. Action prevents
disaster. Disaster prevention creates complacency and the cycle starts again.

There is no question that we have staved off infrastructure disaster for a
long time. And it is just a question of time until the piper comes
due...again.

~~~
goler
I agree and an important question is what is a good strategy to mobilize
action in advance of disaster. The news is full of warnings about impending
disasters. (Most) people can't evaluate the relative risk of each of these
events, so the natural response is to be overwhelmed and assume we will deal
with it when/if it occurs. I don't know if it would have much of an effect on
how inclined readers would be to act, but articles like this one would be a
lot more compelling if they included real data that demonstrates NYC is at a
greater risk than it has been in the past or than other similar cities around
the world.

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pdx_flyer
The outage in Midtown was somewhat of a freak thing. And if you look at the
math around it, in a city of 8 million ~70k customers without power for ~5
hours. That's incredible.

Is ConEd's network the best? No, there are always improvements that can be
made. There is a lot of aging infrastructure that has been replaced and
upgraded as a result of Sandy. And to be clear, I think the response to Sandy
was unacceptable to ConEd management, not just the union(s).

The engineering of the Manhattan network (and the Brooklyn network) is pretty
amazing. It's the reason that when there are power outages, they are usually
shorter and affect fewer customers.

I am reminded of the response to Hurricane Ike in Houston. There were people
there in relatively lightly hit areas that went without power for 3+ weeks.

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goda90
I think food is the scariest of these. A collapsed tunnel/bridge is a tragedy
that will scar lots of people, but society as a whole keeps moving. And people
can adapt to loss of electricity on its own. Yes there will be deaths from the
elements, failed emergency systems, as well as an increase in crime. But food
supplies totally disappearing is when the full chaos begins, especially
someplace like NYC where people don't typically have space for a few weeks of
canned food.

~~~
mcbutterbunz
“Every society is three meals away from chaos” - Vladimir Lenin

~~~
perl4ever
I don't know if this is a true quote, but food isn't _that_ important in the
short run, compared to water and sewage.

(insert comment about overweight Americans here)

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Tempest1981
Maybe NYC can learn from other countries. Train costs:

[https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/spain-high-speed-train-
toro...](https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/spain-high-speed-train-toronto-
commuter-new-york-elevators)

Which links to [https://pedestrianobservations.com/2011/05/16/us-rail-
constr...](https://pedestrianobservations.com/2011/05/16/us-rail-construction-
costs/)

Edit: 2019:
[https://pedestrianobservations.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/c...](https://pedestrianobservations.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/costspresentation2.pdf)

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throwaway1777
Honestly my first thought is this is nothing compared to the PGE and SCE
blackouts in California which last for days at a time.

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thomascgalvin
America's infrastructure as a whole seems to be on the verge of collapse.

Our electrical grids are decades old and cannot support the number of people
we now have, nor their increasing power demands. Our roads are cracking, and
our bridges are crumbling. In the few locations we do have trains, they're
old, diesel-powered, and poorly maintained.

As a nation, we steadfastly refuse to invest in boring-but-necessary things
that would dramatically improve the lives of average people.

~~~
minikites
It's because those thing require taxes, and taxes are evil/theft/waste.

~~~
shuckles
Maybe that we get 10x less infrastructure for every dollar spent has something
to do with it.

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AnimalMuppet
The concern about the train tunnel seems a bit overblown to me. The busiest
route in the country? Maybe, but I bet most of it is passenger trains. If the
tunnel fails, NYC won't starve. People just won't be able to commute to and
from New Jersey by rail, or to take a train to Philadelphia or DC. That's
inconvenient, maybe even somewhat disruptive, but not catastrophic.

~~~
harimau777
Wouldn't the failure also kill a lot of people?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
It _might_. It would depend on when it failed, and how it failed, and whether
there was any advance warning. That in turn could depend on the competence and
diligence of the inspectors, and whether management listens to them (or can be
forced to listen). But yes, it's certainly possible that it could kill several
hundred people. Probably not much more than that (I think).

Still not in the same category as the city running out of food - not by a long
shot. And the tunnel _could_ kill zero.

~~~
harimau777
That's a good point.

What I was trying to say is that, in my opinion, even several hundred people
being killed would constitute a catastrophe.

I also think that the scenario of New York running out of food has a number of
factors that make the worst case scenario less likely:

\- A scenario where emergency food supplies cannot be brought in suggests that
there is some sort of systemic failure country wide. In that case I'm not sure
that there's any strategy that can account for the collapse of society.

\- It likely wouldn't be possible to evacuate everyone and a panicked
evacuation would cause some deaths. However, it is still likely that many
people could be evacuated.

\- At the point where supply lines break down, there would still be a few days
of food already in the city, most people would probably go a few days without
food before they started major rioting, and it would likely be a couple weeks
before people started starving.

Overall, I agree with you that a major interruption to New York's food supply
would likely cause deaths. However, unless society itself has collapsed, I
think it's unlikely that it descends into a Mad Max scenario.

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a_band
Try coming to California...

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aSplash0fDerp
"Eat your heart out NY"!

Anyone got any good recipes?

