NY Hurricane Warning From Homeland Security Chief

The nation's largest city better prepare for a hurricane like the one that hit in 1938 and killed 700 along the East Coast, according to Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff. A storm today would hit a much more populous city, causing more than $100 million in economic losses that would pale in comparison to the refuge crisis that could emerge. Perhaps 3 million people might have to evacuate. That's six times as many as fled New Orleans in the face of Katrina in 2005. It would deal a "devastating blow," Chertoff told the Associated Press. Hurricane forecasters have for a couple years said conditions could be ripe for another storm in the Northeast, though predicting such anomalies is harder even than predicting more typical Atlantic storms. There have already been two named storms, and experts expect this year to be unusually active, according to a story in the June 12 Los Angeles Times.