Propose a reliable method of evacuating Manhattan in 24 hours

[frekk]

A few questions.

What are the most densely populated sections? The Financial District? Chinatown? The Lower East Side? Around Central Park?

What are the least densely populated sections?

What are those things that look like piers on the Hudson River? Can large ships dock there? How big, can I dock oil tankers there? Also, are there plenty of small boats and ships that I might requisition?

What kind of military resources do I have?

The tunnels noted on the map, are these just subway tunnels or are they available for use by motor vehicles too?

My thought would be that it looks, in fact, excellently suited for just such a mass evacuation. I'm not sure the exact details of what I'd do but I know it would involve heavy use of the river and what look like extensive port facilities. The biggest problem would be getting people to come down from the highrises, but once you had them on the streets it wouldn't be difficult to get them out (particularly if you closed the bridges and streets to civilian traffic, to avoid congestion and allow your own assets free movement.)

IMHO, that would be the key to the evacuation - it would have to be entirely planned and coordinated, people would not be able to leave under their own power or I doubt you could evacuate more than a third of them. The bridges and streets would become congested, the subway stations would be packed, etc. You'd have to have lots of military out in the streets, and the whole evacuation would have to be controlled. The most uncooperative elements I would evacuate last, by force, using tear gas and other methods.

Of course alot would depend on exactly what the danger was, too. If we're talking about a hurricane here, I'm not too sure I'd be eager to be utilizing ships and boats so heavily.

 

[The Yankee]

Those bridges and tunnels are all for motor vehicles. If you want to see the subway system, go here:

http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/nyct/maps/submap.htm

Some large ships can get to New York City. I would imagine it would depend on whether they're there are the moment or not. For some further use of capacity, I'd shove some people into the USS Intrepid, that should be able to withstand some beating, even though it'd make everyone inside seasick.

Pretty much all of Manhattan is densely populated during the day. Even if there aren't as many residents, say, in the Financial District as there would be in Chinatown, if the evacuation call came in the middle of a business day, you'd have a lot more people to deal with.

 

[Timko]

50 people per bus, generally. So 1000 busses could evacuate 50,000 people per trip. It'd take 30 trips to get 1.5 million people out. Not fast enough to complete the job in 24 hours, assuming 1-2 hours per trip on average.

If you stopped people from driving cars then 1-2 hours per trip should be an overestimate.

I think it should be very easy if you managed to persuade people that they absolutely had to leave, and offered plenty of free transport. Neither of these things were true of New-Orleans.

@BE: Buses would NOT travel with JUST 50 miles per hour! They'd travel much faster, as they wouldn't go to a picnik.

Homer Simpson: Like the film Speed 2, only with a bus!

 

[cgannon64]

I imagine it would be easier to persuade the people of Manhattan that the danger was real and that they had to leave. I can't think of any instance where Manhattan had to be evacuated. It would be an obviously grave first.

 

[King Alexander]

Hey, I found it! Just tell the people that little green Mars creatures have invaded Manhattan! (j/k)

 

[Arminius]

There is no reliable method of evacuating such a population in in such a limited time for one simple reason: The clock starts when you find out the evacuation is needed. The time you took to come up with your plan is deducted, the time it takes to amass the needed resources is deducted and you are left with something more like 12 to 18 hours to carry out the evacuation. Consider idiots will occur and you will have to make decisions when things go wrong, all burning precious time.

 

[IglooDame]

I wonder if the evacuation would go quicker if individual cars were "disallowed"? Have cops/troops disable all non-emergency four wheelers with a few rounds to the radiator, and every tow truck in NYC standing by to keep the roads clear for buses. With buses, subways, foot traffic over all the bridges, and a Dunkirkesque waterborne evacuation, and everyone reasonably cooperating, I think it is theoretically possible. But, that's essentially just getting everyone across the rivers, not getting them out of the area, and I can't think of a disaster that would limit itself strictly to Manhattan.

 

[Dr. Yoshi]

In the event of a bombing: Assuming this is a conventional bombing and not nuclear, chemical, or biological, open up the railways and airports and evacuate as many people as possible through a lottery system. If there are still people left in Manhattan 6 hours before the event is supposed to happen, have the remaining people hide in the subway tunnels. The next day when the bombing is over send in Army trucks and APCs to evac the survivors.

In the event of a hurricane: It would not be possible to have the remaining people hide in the subways as they might flood. In this case, use every means of transportation possible except boat to get everyone out of Manhattan. Bring in Galaxy transport aircraft and get as many people in there as possible. Give priority to children and their mothers. Make sure that no one is left behind. In the event that there are people left behind get them into the hallways of the skyscrapers away from any windows.

 

[The Yankee]

Hey, I found it! Just tell the people that little green Mars creatures have invaded Manhattan! (j/k)

We'll be more likely to stay around wanting to stab them than run away.