Good night, Irene: in the storm’s path

As Hurricane Irene hurtled up the Eastern Seaboard on Saturday, New Yorkers’ responses varied from panicked to nonchalant to completely clueless about the impending disaster.

The storm, which is forecast to hit New York this morning, is ferocious, but slow-moving, giving the city plenty of time to prepare for its arrival.

But even as Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city’s hurricane Zone A — where this former Vindicator reporter now lives — residents and Saturday brunch-diners in the Zone’s low-lying neighborhoods seemed completely perplexed as to why their neighbors were packing up their cats and vacating to higher ground.

By Saturday night, however, the severity of Irene had become clear. National Guard troops in humvees have set up camp along Lexington Avenue, and the normally bustling streets of Manhattan are almost completely empty as the first rain belts of Irene started to hit the island. More than 370,000 people, including this reporter, have been evacuated, and tornado warnings have been issued for all five boroughs of New York City.

As a native Californian, I have no experience with tropical storms. The closest I have ever come to experiencing a full-blown was a tornado warning in Youngstown.

So I joined the throngs of informed — and panicked — citizens raiding supermarkets for bottled water and Pop Tarts. The panic of a fast-approaching natural disaster brings out the worst in people, so imagine my surprise when a young man allowed me to pass him in a completely jammed aisle. Then I saw his Youngstown State shirt, and realized I was wearing a shirt from last year’s United Auto Workers Local 1112 bike show. We both grinned, and amid all of the Zone A evacuation chaos, I remembered once again that, no matter how grim the circumstances, I will always have a friend in the Mahoning Valley.

Grace Wyler is a former business editor at The Vindicator