After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, many New York companies, fearing another air assault, put their back-up generators in the basement — which is how they came to be flooded when Hurricane Sandy struck in 2012.
Where should they have put their generators? “In the middle of the building,” says Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation. That is where Ikea’s Red Hook, Brooklyn store had its generator. The store was also built on stilts, with its car park below. “They were hit very hard,” Ms Rodin says. But unlike other businesses, Ikea was up and running in a few days. “The benefit for them was that they not only recovered quickly but they became a community centre for recovery.”
The New York generator issue demonstrates a problem with disaster planning. Too many companies and cities agonise over how they should have confronted their last disaster.