A massive hurricane is swirling toward the eastern seaboard of the U.S. leaving 29 million people under a Hurricane warning on Friday night. Currently a category 2 storm, Hurricane Irene is forecast to straddle the coast before making landfall near New York City. Here in Southern California we don’t have many hurricane threats but then again it had been a while since the East Coast experienced a strong earthquake before this week. But in 1939 the only tropical storm to make landfall in California killed dozens at sea before coming ashore in Long Beach. 45 deaths were reported as a result of the flooding. And in 1858 a hurricane is said to have nearly made landfall off the San Diego coast, causing the 2011 equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars before turning back out to sea.

But in the 19th and even the 20th centuries we did not have the advanced warning and communications systems that we have today. Without even grazing land, Hurricane Irene is making history — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that today was the first time in the city’s history that mandatory evacuations had been ordered. About a quarter-million residents, primarily on the low-lying edges of Manhattan were urged to abandon their homes. New York’s subway system will be shut down Saturday at noon due to the threat of flooding.

It’s uncertain what kind of damage might result from up 20 hours of sustained tropical storm force winds (40-60 mph forecast), a storm surge up to six feet and a deluge of rain (anywhere from 6 to 15 inches) to top off a wet summer.

But one thing is for sure: Hurricane Irene is headed directly toward NYC. Unless it veers to the west. Or takes a more easterly track. In the post-Katrina era both the government and the public hope to avoid any catastrophic surprises.

NYC Evacuation Map

Google is hosting a central interface where anyone can view and mashup meteorological and government mapping data at crisislanding.appspot.com. FEMA announced a new text messaging service and an Android app today and is regularly publishing updates on local government emergency information sources available on Twitter and is recommending its Ready.gov preparedness guide. Mayor Bloomberg’s office is continuously tweeting updates as well. Maps of the evacuation zones and shelters have proliferated across the web even as the NYC.gov site buckled under heavy demand earlier today.

Power outages will be widespread and cellular voice services may be shaky as they were following Tuesday’s almost entirely unexpected East Coast earthquake. SMS and mobile data services, however, are more likely to tough out the storm and it will be Twitter messages and photos and YouTube videos that will keep people updated in near-real time on their internet-enabled smartphones even after the power goes out (until, inevitably the battery dies on the phone).

Originally posted on KCET’s The Public Note blog.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg just addressed the 1,000+ attendees of TechCrunch Disrupt. Reinforcing his new media acumen, he leads by rattling off all of the updates and check-ins he did on the way over here. “I even put a classified on Craigslist,” he added, “the Cleveland Craigslist” – trying to get LeBron to come to New York (when he managed to compare King James to Arrington taking TechCrunch Disrupt to New York — several in the press section nearly gagged). Bloomberg, of course, was a pioneer in new media and fits right in in this room, have founded Bloomberg L.P. after being fired from Salomon Brothers in the early ’80s.

Bloomberg then goes into pitch mode. NYC needs smart people, developers, entrepreneurs, and engineers apparently. “It doesn’t matter if you’re from New York or New Jersey or New Delhi, if you have an idea or an app, New York City is the place for you. “This is the city where it’s happening….”

Erick Schonfeld: “You know there’s a friendly rivalry between Silicon Valley and the New York tech scene…” “Who says it’s friendly?” joked Bloomberg.

Bloomberg alludes to Bloomberg’s acquisition (resuscitation) of BusinessWeek saying that they lost their way. “You don’t know what is going to be important to you tomorrow” — you need editors, real, trained journalists. But is the mayor out of touch? He still believes most people in the room read the newspaper as delivered each morning. It’s a good thing he’s the mayor and not physically running media operations at his company.