Regardless What Happens With Hurricane Irene, Rikers Island Will Not Be Evacuated

The entire East Coast is preparing for Hurricane Irene. For New York City, according to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, this means a shutdown of the MTA and the first mandatory evacuation in NYC’s history, which will affect roughly 250,000 people.  It does not, however, mean that anything will be done about those at Rikers Island. To quote Jean Casella and James Ridgeway’s “Locked Up and Left Behind: New York’s Prisoners and Hurricane Irene,” “Rikers Island, which lies in the waters between Queens and the Bronx, is not highlighted at all [on the city’s evacuation map], meaning it is not to be evacuated under any circumstances.” Let me repeat that, just in case you somehow missed it. It is not be to evacuated under any circumstances.