"Whenever a hurricane comes up here," said Nicholas Coch, a professor of sedimentology and coastal geology at Queens College, "you add one to the category because we're in the worst possible place in the world to be."

Indeed as New Yorkers saw, it only takes a Category 1 hurricane to cause a massive flood of subways, car tunnels, streets, and airports. Let's take a look at why New York is so vulnerable.

A "bight" is a curve or bend on an open shoreline. Think of the Bight of Australia, that wide, upside-down U on the bottom of the continent, or the Bight of Benin on the western coast of Africa, which pockets a portion of the Atlantic Ocean stretching 400