Hurricane Sandy's fast-approaching high winds and high waters don’t seem faze many New Yorkers. Behind the “ghost town” appearance of city streets, inside, it’s party preparation, popcorn, and even business-as-usual in some local stores as late as Monday afternoon.
“I’m open because I was told to be open,” said a clothes shop sales assistant in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighbourhood, who asked not to be named. “And we got people, people are coming in to shop, you know. But I keep one door closed, one open, just in case of the wind.”
The shop is just two blocks away from Zone A, currently the only mandatory evacuation zone designated by New York City authorities.
Down the street, Jay-Z and Kanye West songs blast from a laundromat. Two young women are hunched over paperwork flung across the counter. The shop is empty, but a few machines are spinning and piles of folded clothes sit on the shelves behind the women.
“We’re open until five, and our last wash is at three,” says one of the young women, with short bleached blonde hair, smiling. “Two people came in, and a couple called to say they want to do their laundry. I guess people do do their laundry when there’s a storm,” she laughed.
Asked about whether they were nervous about Sandy, both women said no, they’re looking forward to family time and relaxing indoors with wine. Many of the neighbourhood’s residents roaming the streets in last-minute grocery shopping or dog-walking seemed to share this sentiment.
“It’s fine,” college Senior Amanda Wallace said. “I bought a ton of pasta and pasta sauce.”
An elderly woman sweeping leaves on her front porch explained that people around here don’t worry too much: “We’re hoping for the best,” she said.
Most of the media, and even the mayor’s office must have picked up on this nonchalance, as they urged New Yorkers to take Hurricane Sandy seriously.
During a midday press conference, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned: “This is a storm that could easily kill you," adding that his biggest fear “is that people don’t leave, when retrospectively they should have.”
Popular newscasts like ABC’s Good Morning America and the city’s number one local news channel NY1 repeated how Sandy is already worse than last year’s Hurricane Irene, for which an evacuation notice was also issued, and a city-wide lockdown of businesses, transport, and schools launched.
Many New Yorkers felt Hurricane Irene precautions were disproportionate to the damage it actually caused.
“Last year, sixty percent of my building stayed out during Irene, while my family took the evacuation warning seriously and we to a Midtown Hotel,” reminisced native New Yorker Michael Wilner, who lives on the 32nd floor of a building called the Waterside Plaza right on the East River and 23rd street, near Manhattan’s Union Square.
“I know this one is meant to be worse, but it’s completely unconstitutional to tell me to leave my home, and, really, Sandy’s only a category one storm,” said Wilner. “The real danger, since we’re so high up, is a blackout from flooding, which we can live with. I don’t see any windows breaking in.”
So far, almost 400,000 people have been advised to evacuate, and city shelters have accepted around 3,000 residents affected by the hurricane.
“We had evacuation notices posted in the building yesterday, we got emails, and the management turned off the elevators to try and get people out,” explained Wilner. “But it’s interesting that out of the 300,000 or so people living in low-lying areas, the city has only prepared shelters for something like 60 or 70 thousand.”
Unlike Wilner, Erin Cauchi, another New Yorker, would prefer to evacuate, but can’t. “I live half a block away from Zone A,” explained Cauchi, who lives on 1st Avenue and 14th street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighborhood.
“We thought we had to leave but all that’s happened is our hot water got shut off yesterday afternoon.”
The force of Hurricane Sandy is expected to hit New York City overnight, but on Monday evening, winds in excess of 90 miles per hour are blowing, and water’s already breaching low-lying seafront areas like downtown Manhattan’s Battery Park, a key tourist spot that facilitates ferries to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.
Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighbourhood overlooks Manhattan’s Lower East Side, almost directly opposite Zone A spots like Wilner’s “Waterside Place.” As raindrops get bigger and skies get murkier, more and more residents are locking themselves indoors, most with cases of wine or beer.
“I’ve just bought a box of wine, and as long as the Internet holds, I’m gonna Netflix my 48 hours,” one young male resident said while rushing up the street.
While out to a late lunch on Monday with friends, in a phone interview, Brooklyn’s Red Hook resident Nicole Gates Anderson described how storms like this are the perfect opportunity to get together and have fun with friends.
“I live alone and I’m going to be stranded so I thought I may as well throw a hurricane party,” said Anderson. “With all public transport down, I don’t know if everyone can make it tonight, but a few friends and I are going to basically apartment hop and have drinks.”
#Sandyparty is trending on Twitter, and with the Mayor’s announcement that school’s out, people are Tweeting things like: “No classes till wed #stoked #sandyparty?” Websites like BuzzFeed have compiled slideshows of people “Who Clearly Don’t Give Damn About Hurricane Sandy”, featuring photographs of surfers, dog walkers and tourists taking snapshots.
As night falls, New Yorkers will definitely heed official warning and head indoors, but most likely with a glass of wine.