Hurricane Season 2017: Do you know your zone?

The New York City Emergency Management Department launched a new phase of the “Know Your Zone” hurricane awareness campaign today to encourage residents to find out whether they live in one of the city’s six hurricane evacuation zones. (The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season officially started this past Thursday and continues through the end of November.)

This year's campaign features new ads that highlight personal preparedness tips from Community Emergency Response Team volunteers. That part is pretty straightforward.

Here's more from the city's news release ...

A 2017 Preparedness survey conducted by Global Strategy Group indicates that while 67 percent of New York City residents say they feel very or somewhat informed about what to do in the event of an emergency, one in four (25 percent) remain unsure about whether they live in a hurricane evacuation zone. In addition, the percentage of residents who say they live in an evacuation zone but cannot identify which zone they live in has increased by 7 points since a similar preparedness survey conducted in 2015 (2017: 57 percent don’t know, 2015: 50 percent didn’t know).

Hurricane evacuation zones are based on coastal flood risk resulting from storm surge (the “dome” of ocean water that is pushed ashore by the winds and low barometric pressure of a hurricane), the geography of the city’s low-lying neighborhoods, and the accessibility of these neighborhoods by bridges and roads. The city may order residents who live in a zone to evacuate depending on a hurricane’s forecast strength, track and storm surge.

The screengrab of the zone map shows this neighborhood ... Zone 1 is basically the area that got hit hard during Sandy, from the East River west to Avenue B, south to the north side of Seventh Street. Anyway, you can type in your address at the NYC Hurricane Evacuation Zone Finder here. (The address in the screengrab above is for Ray's Candy Store on Avenue A at Seventh Street. Zone 5!)