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Wouldn't the failure also kill a lot of people?

• AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  It might. It would depend on when it failed, and how it failed, and whether there was any advance warning. That in turn could depend on the competence and diligence of the inspectors, and whether management listens to them (or can be forced to listen). But yes, it's certainly possible that it could kill several hundred people. Probably not much more than that (I think). Still not in the same category as the city running out of food - not by a long shot. And the tunnel could kill zero.
  • harimau777 7y ago
    That's a good point. What I was trying to say is that, in my opinion, even several hundred people being killed would constitute a catastrophe. I also think that the scenario of New York running out of food has a number of factors that make the worst case scenario less likely: - A scenario where emergency food supplies cannot be brought in suggests that there is some sort of systemic failure country wide. In that case I'm not sure that there's any strategy that can account for the collapse of society. - It likely wouldn't be possible to evacuate everyone and a panicked evacuation would cause some deaths. However, it is still likely that many people could be evacuated. - At the point where supply lines break down, there would still be a few days of food already in the city, most people would probably go a few days without food before they started major rioting, and it would likely be a couple weeks before people started starving. Overall, I agree with you that a major interruption to New York's food supply would likely cause deaths. However, unless society itself has collapsed, I think it's unlikely that it descends into a Mad Max scenario.