New Yorkers by nature are hard to scare.
Last week, we braced for an earthquake
and a hurricane in a three-day span. Hurricane Irene was a serious event, obviously, and it caused a couple of dozen deaths as well as thousands of people to lose their homes or their electrical power or their possessions.
But we New Yorkers have grit, resolve, and chutzpah. We aren't about to wilt, just because the city decides to close down the transit system and the supermarkets find that there is a run on candles, batteries, and the like.
When the earthquake fears subsided, we morphed right into our hurricane warnings. If it had happened anywhere else in the world, we would have laughed it off. But since this was occurring in our hometown, we faced the emergency head on.
New Yorkers like a little danger. We don't let a little heavy weather frighten us. We knew we'd pull through the hurricane, just as we shook off the earthquake. It's the way we roll around here.
If the subway isn't working, we take the bus. When we have a blackout like we had nearly a decade ago, we hoof it. During that epochal blackout many years ago, I found that I didn't mind being without electricity or other essentials for a day or two. Yeah, the ice cream melted, but so what?
It was kind of fun to "rough it" at the time, not that I'd want it to become a way of life, of course (I'm not insane). But it's a way of testing your resolve, too. In the threat of an emergency, will you panic or will you hang tough?
Make no mistake, we were hanging tough last weekend in the five boroughs.
Jon Friedman writes the Media Web column for MarketWatch.com. Click here to read his latest column.
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