You Think You’re Ready? You Really Think You Know What To Do?

In a week featuring coordinated bombings of Western hotels in Jordan and the apparent disruption of a terrorist plot allegedly in its final stages in Australia (and a potential threat in China . . . or not?), New York Magazine indulges our latent thirst for disaster-preparedness porn:

Despite [NYPD assistant chief in charge of preparedness Phil] Pulaski’s confidence, few people believe a full-scale evacuation of New York would be anything other than an interminable, nightmarish logjam. “You look at New York City and you know you’ll never be able to evacuate all of it,” [State] Assemblyman [Richard] Brodsky admits.

When I ask Pulaski about this, he takes an uncharacteristic pause. Then he answers with a question.

“What would happen that would require the entire city to be evacuated? I can’t think of anything.”

Unlike New Orleans and its levees, New York has no single point of failure, and it is difficult to imagine a situation in which the entire city would have to be evacuated. Except for one. A nuclear explosion.

. . .

A dirty bomb is one thing, but an actual nuclear event, as it’s often innocuously referred to (it makes it sound like something you don’t want to miss, like the “movie or concert event of the season”), is the mother of all disaster scenarios. And it is the Rubik’s Cube of preparedness planning. How do you prepare for something so overwhelming?

. . .

In the end, some of the most important things to manage are expectations. “There is this notion,” Brodsky says, “that we can take care of everybody. Well, the truth is we can’t take care of everybody.”

But Wait! There’s More! Act Now And You Not Only Get A Disaster-Preparedness Porn Feature But Two Other Worrying Sidebars As Well! See What New Yorkers Are Doing To Prepare For Avian Flu! (“One woman says she got a prescription at the insistence of her boyfriend, who already had his. ‘This is just precautionary,’ he explains, asking that they not be identified because he works for a TV network and doesn’t want to be subjected to ridicule by his peers.”) And also — A short guide to nine big things to worry about — and what you can do about them:

If terrorists hit the Kuehne Chemical Co. chlorine-manufacturing plant in Kearny, New Jersey—directly under the Pulaski Skyway and considered one of the country’s most vulnerable targets—the city’s top priority would be figuring out how fast it would take the greenish-yellow gaseous cloud to get here.

Indian Point Meltdown? Check:

Hope that winds are headed north [Albany is for suckers!], as the 35 miles between the nuclear-power plant and midtown is a short commute southward for a radioactive plume, which could kill thousands in a few days, cause radiation sickness and eventual cancer for tens of thousands more, and taint the city’s water supply.

Nuclear Explosion You’re Looking For? We’ve Got That, Too:

Pray for help from the Feds because city hospitals, police precincts, and firehouses could be destroyed. If the prospect of a fema-managed catastrophe isn’t scary enough, a nuclear bomb would kill millions, and the lucky ones would get vaporized instantly. Others would be burned, blinded, or poisoned by radiation sickness in subsequent weeks and months. Bodies would litter the streets, and the water supply would be contaminated. The city would be too radioactive for outside emergency workers to enter, so those left alive would have to improvise.

But Wait! Wait! Act Now And You Get Not Only A Disaster-Preparedness Porn Feature — Plus The Two Worrying Sidebars! — But Also This Handy Guide Showing All Geologic Fault Lines In The Five Boroughs! All Yours. But Only If You Act Now!

And Don’t Forget This Blast From The Past: Bill Keller’s “Nuclear Nightmares” (New York Times Magazine, May 26, 2002)