Extrapolating

I am a Californian. I've been through two disasters: Loma Prieta in '89 and the Oakland Fire in which my father and brother helped people water their roofs and evacuate. I do not dream of them, though I understand how bad they were and why.

I have nightmares sometimes about tornadoes and hurricanes. They are not part of my life but a thing that climbs out of the books where I have read about it and threatens people who matter to me.

New York is another thing from stories. I have not been there, so to me it is "a city several times larger than San Francisco". It is a city around a river one mile wide. It crawled over the islands and shores at the mouth of the Hudson and encrusted them in concrete. And it is full of people.

375,000 people have been ordered to evacuate New York City. I envision terrible things and wonder how they will all get out and where they will all go.