7 NYC Hurricane Facts Scarier Than 'Frankenstorm' Hurricane Sandy

By Fionna Agomuoh | October 28 2012 8:18 PM

Halloween and hurricanes are a frightening combination, and it appears the Frankenstorm, aka Hurricane Sandy, is getting all decked out to wash away everyone’s trick-or-treating in the U.S. Northeast.

Reuters

Spirits of New York tourists may have been dampened a bit by the remnants of Hurricane Irene last year. Hurricane Sandy could be an even bigger wet blanket this year.
Reuters

Hurricane Sandy, the so-called Frankenstorm, is currently churning in the Atlantic Ocean close to the U.S. East Coast.

But hurricanes, nor'easters, and similar storms can be frightening all by themselves, especially when they threaten to hit New York. Check out some of these seriously scary facts about storms in the Big Apple.

1. New York ranks No. 2 among the top 10 worst places for an extreme hurricane to hit in the U.S., according to Insure.com. (Two Floridian metropolitan areas -- Miami/Fort Lauderdale and Tampa/St. Petersburg -- are No. 1 and No. 3, respectively.) Such a strike in New York could lead to potential economic losses of $53 billion and possible insured losses of $26.5 billion.

2. Hurricane Irene, a New York visitor in August of last year, cost the city alone $55 million, according to the New York Daily News. Of course, Irene was not a hurricane but a tropical storm by the time it hit the city.

3. In 1893, a hurricane struck New York and washed Hog Island, a geographical feature south of Rockaway Beach, right off the map. It is reputedly the only known instance of an entire island disappearing completely because of a hurricane.

4. The New England Hurricane of 1938 -- aka either the Long Island Express or the Yankee Clipper -- was the last hurricane to directly take a swipe at New York while still a hurricane. As a point of reference, a major hurricane hits the Big Apple about every 75 years, according to New York magazine.

5. The 1821 Norfolk and Long Island Hurricane was one of few tropical cyclones known to directly hit New York. It flooded lower Manhattan all the way from the harbor to Canal Street.

6. There is a 90 percent chance that a Category 3 (or higher) storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale will strike New York/Long Island during the next 50 years, according to the United States Landfalling Hurricane Probability Project.

7. A Category 2 hurricane would cover JFK International Airport in New York's Queens with five feet of water, CNN reported, while a Category 3 hurricane would completely flood both the Holland Tunnel and the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel (aka the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel), the New York Press said.