So people thought that would happen again with Katrina - and basically it did, but Katrina was so huge of a storm that it was able to flood NOLA with a shot from the weaker side of the storm.
But what are officials supposed to do? Not evacuate? That's what is whacked here - this storm had Cat 3 pressure - not easy to predict it two days out it will only be Cat 1 when it arrives in NYC.
No mayor of NY wants under-preparation and storm devastation on his record. But the City managed over 8” of rain two weeks ago today without any problem. If he weren’t still paying for his indifference during a big snowstorm last December, he might have waited until noon on Saturday to decide whether to unwind their transportation system over the next 8 hours—and at that time it would probably have looked less necessary.
In general, however, I agree. Since the populace is trained to blame the government for being unprepared, I don’t blame the government for sometimes being over-prepared.