National Underwriter - September 5, 2011

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A UNIT OF

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Andrew L. Goodenough
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Thomas M. Flynn

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EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
MEDIA DIVISION
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Tough Call On Irene: Bloomberg, Evacuations

& Risk Management

AS IRENE RUMBLED up the East Coast on Aug. 26, we got to witness some very difficult risk-management decisions playing out in a very public sphere.

On the Friday before the storm’s anticipated Sunday morning arrival, Mayor Mike Bloomberg issued New York’s first-ever mandatory evacuation for residents in low-lying parts of the city—an order that affected some 370,000 people. Around the same time, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), in a decision not made but heartily endorsed by Bloomberg (and N.Y. Governor Andrew Cuomo), announced it would be shutting down the region’s entire subway and rail network at noon on Saturday.

In retrospect, the evacuations were clearly unnecessary. By the time Irene reached the city, Irene’s strength had dwindled to the level of a tropical storm and no longer packed a life-threatening (or emergency-vehicle-blocking) punch.

And while some rail lines outside the city did suffer significant damage, the city’s subway system was largely spared— and was, for the most part, fully operational for the Monday-morning commute (as was the under-Hudson River PATH system that connects Manhattan to NU’s offices in Hoboken, N.J.).

So did Bloomberg and MTA officials make the right risk-management call?

In the realm of public opinion—all important for a politician—reviews are mixed, with an edge to those giving Bloomberg and the MTA a thumbs up for their “better safe than sorry” approach (at least based on some 650 comments on this question on the New York Times site).

But plenty are expressing outrage over
a perceived massive overreaction: lament-
ing the economic hit of the transportation
shutdown for an entire weekend; angry
over the real risks and hardships that
come with asking 370,000 people to leave
their homes on short notice; worried that
the evacuation sets a bad precedent that
will invite many more to come at the drop
of a hat (or raindrop); and predicting a
“boy who cried wolf” impact on govern-
ment warnings about future storms.
And almost all of those giving negative
marks to Bloomberg’s risk-management
skills pointed to
the evisceration
the mayor took
for what was
widely seen as
a woeful lack of
preparation for a
December 2010
blizzard: This
blunder, they
feel, caused him
to vastly over-
compensate for
Irene, with a mitigation plan totally out of
proportion to the likely risk.