'Only a Matter of Time.' Disaster Readiness Tips at Downtown Forum.

At the Downtown Community Center during the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020, Manhattan Youth's Moises Cordero hands out free masks. Manhattan Youth also provided children with free art supplies for projects that would be displayed in the communty center window. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Have a plan and know thy neighbor.

Those were two takeaways from an emergency preparedness forum held at the Downtown Community Center on Oct. 16. Manhattan Youth Executive Director Bob Townley, whose organization played a critical role in helping local businesses and residents through 9/11, Hurricane Sandy and the pandemic, initiated the forum because “it’s only a matter of time before the next disaster,” he said.

Along with Townley, the panel included Assembly member Deborah Glick, Ira Tannenbaum, assistant commissioner of the city’s Office of Emergency Management, and Sean McNerney from American Red Cross Disaster Services.

“Climate change is changing the way storms are developing and how persistent they are, and Lower Manhattan has been damaged in the past,” said Glick, whose district includes Tribeca. Despite ongoing projects aimed at shoring up the waters around Lower Manhattan, another superstorm could cause devastating damage. In these types of situations, Glick explained, people become the first responders, “and we want to have a conversation so they have some idea of what they can do before help arrives.”

So what can people do? Here are some recommendations from the experts on the panel:

• First and foremost, have a solid evacuation plan—and share it with your loved ones, as well as a contact who lives out of state and is not experiencing the same emergency. McNerney and Tannenbaum stressed the importance of having not one, but two “go bags” at the ready: one for humans and one, if applicable, for pets. The human version should contain, among other things, a hand crank or battery-operated AM/FM radio. 

• Townley also recommended investing in a portable charger, which retails for about $80. (And, he says, remember to keep it charged at all times.) Most importantly, everyone on the panel recommended signing up for Notify NYC, the City’s official emergency notification system. The app is free.

• Connecting with neighbors is key, Glick said, to an organized and panic-reducing response to emergencies. “Now that the federal government is saying FEMA’s going away and it’s a state responsibility,” Glick said, “it’s going to devolve down to the grassroots level for us to help each other. In a storm, it’s about neighbors helping neighbors.”

It wasn’t that long ago that parts of Lower Manhattan were ravaged by Superstorm Sandy. “The further north you went, the less people felt it, Glick recalled. “Uptown, people still had their drugstore, their subways. They had lights.” And, as residents may recall, no electricity meant no plumbing. Glick told her wife, “Sweetheart, this is the last flush!”

Townley said that Manhattan Youth and the Downtown Community Center will continue to play a leading role during emergencies. “We have this building,” he said, “we have flashlights, we have masks, we have batteries, we even have sand.” He recalled that during Sandy, many of his 700 employees were running buckets up and down the stairs of the community center, removing water from the flooded parking garage below. People pulled together— with practically zero notice.

Attending the forum was a “no-brainer” for Tocarra Mallard, whose family are members of the community center. She said she will start by organizing an emergency preparedness event in her building. Then she plans to buy everything the panel suggested—including a crank radio.

“Because I’ve been thinking about this, just the current state of the world and what’s going on, what do I do and how do I stay safe in New York City, especially Lower Manhattan,” she said. “Now what I need to do is figure out how to share this information with my family and my neighbors.”

For more information, go to the city’s Emergency Management handbook.