Apocalypse now: NY tabs blessed with two cataclysms in one week

Joe Pompeo
·Media Reporter

It's not often that the New York tabloids get to whip their readers into a frenzy about two natural disasters in a three-day period.

But the earth did shake Tuesday in the Big Apple, and the skies are indeed expected to open up on the city this weekend as a result of approaching Hurricane Irene. The tabloids had plenty of apocalyptic fodder to work with for their covers Thursday morning.

"MONSTER! Angry Irene roars straight for U.S. & city," screams today's cover of the Daily News.

The New York Post was ever so slightly softer in sounding the alarm: "MEAN IRENE, Monster 'cane zeros in on NYC." (And by "Monster 'cane," of course, they mean "winds of up to 50 mph and 4 to 8 inches of rain.")

Both headlines were a fitting sequel to Wednesday's respective woods: "RATTLED" and "DAY THE CITY SHOOK!", to commemorate the brief swaying sensation that was powerful enough, perhaps, to have jostled paper clip cups on office desks from Battery Park to the Upper East Side.