Will NYC be hit badly by big storms this season? Let's prepare.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric and Administration and the National Weather Service are forecasting that this fall will be a more active than average storm season in the Northeast. The NYC Grassroots Alliance will be hosting an event on Monday 9/11 about how NYC is preparing and what we can do to prepare ourselves and help to make NY a more resilient city.

Guest speakers will include Jay Brandt, who is the Deputy Director of NYC's Office of Emergency Management and who formerly worked at FEMA. He will tell us what his agency does in NYC in anticipation of forecasted storms and Wendy Brawer, who is the Director ofGreenMap.org (http://greenmap.org/) . She will introduce her resiliency projects that are making neighborhoods feel more inter-connected. It starts with the way locally-made Green Maps are transforming the way people connect with local ecological, economic and social resources. Using the skills she gained making NYC’s Green Maps, Wendy has co-created climate action experiences, media and projects across the city. She’s involved in community preparedness in the post-Sandy era on the Lower East Side through LES Ready and other groups.

A high ranking city official recently told us that they "breathed a sigh of relief" in mid October of 2012 when they thought they had survived an anticipated big storm. And then, on 10/28, Superstorm Sandy happened!! No one knows precisely when and where storms will hit. NYC trains first responders to prepare for potential crises as if they will happen.

We too should be doing our own preparations for storm seasons within our homes and our communities. This event will help us remember the lessons we learned five years ago from Superstorm Sandy and again from the terrible situation in Texas related to Hurricane Harvey. It will also remind us that the speed at which Hurricane Irma has grown from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane may no longer be unusual.

Though no two situations are the same, one thing that we have seen is that Texas neighbors have rescued neighbors. They didn't wait for government agencies to free them from flooded homes and bring them to shelters. And they continue to need help from people outside of Texas. We need to think about that.

We will show some short videos and provide useful handouts.