It came to the megacity at dusk, deceptively and unequally . . . In the lowlands, near the seashores, the harbors, the bays, the Sound, the river: apocalypse. The very ocean rose, tsunami-like, relentless, terrifying, bringing devastation by flood and wind and windshipped fire, and for some ten million people in a swath a thousand miles wide and encompassing sixteen states, darkness and dread.* —Hendrik Hertzberg on Hurricane Sandy, The New Yorker, November 12, 2012
*Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Originally published in The New Yorker. Reprinted by permission.