Does New York Realize What's Coming Their Way?

I'm not so sure they do. The latest models show Irene hitting smack into New York City as a Category 1 hurricane. Can you imagine what the storm surge and winds whistling through skyscraper canyons is going to do?

Apparently Mayor Michael Bloomberg will not make a decision on mandatory evacuations until 8am Saturday morning. Conditions will be deteriorating throughout the day before the main storm hits on Sunday, but that seems to be cutting things way too short. Hope they have room in Madison Square Garden for thousands of potential refugees (See Superdome, New Orleans).

And the Giants and Jets were scheduled to play a pre-season game Saturday evening at 7. Did they cancel it? Nope, they just moved it up to 2pm. All those people will be trying to leave the stadium in what will surely be pretty tough conditions.

And a little further south in Washington D.C., the dedication ceremony on Sunday for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial has been cancelled, but Rev. Al Sharpton has assured his minions that his march and rally on Saturday will still go on. Something seems really wrong with that. The hero gets postponed but the ego goes on.

Good luck with all that.

UPDATE: I just looked at the 11pm 72 hour track forecast. As you can see from the image below the forecast track has the storm passing just east of Manhattan and basically right over JFK Airport (the black line is the projected path.