SCARIEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE IN NYC

he was a terrific guy exactly the person you thought he was [Music] [Music] fear selfish hello and welcome to this very special edition episode of the block we are about one month away from the four year anniversary of Hurricane sandy the worst hurricanes ever hit New York City and today's episode is gonna be about my experience during that night where I show all this footage that I've never really shown before of lower Manhattan New York City completely underwater a little refresher on October 29 2012 hurricane sandy hit New York City now this was the second costliest hurricane in US history and it already left a path of destruction all the way up East Coast but on the 29th it hit New York City now I was here at the time I lived in the East Village and we knew it was coming the forecast for a large and dangerous storm surge is the same as it was this morning and they like warned the whole city they prepared us for an absolute apocalypse and then like nothing happened tell me what you really think what tell me we think about this storm I think it's I think it's fun there was rain and a little bit of wind but this is New York City like we can handle it then towards the end of the day I was riding my bike back downtown on the Westside Highway and I walked the river just keep going up and up and up and up ultimately getting towards the southern tip of the island and I remember this detail vividly the southern tip of the island means like it's where you can see all the water in the Statute of Liberty so it's where all the news crews were set up with their big lights and their cameras and there was this one point when the water came up over the sidewalks then I watched all the news crews pack up their stuff pack up their van shut down their lights throw the cameras in the van and take off and they were all saying it's not safe to be down here it definitely was not safe to be down there but this is a slightly younger slightly stupider version of me I was also with my younger brother who had just gotten out of the military who convinced me that is like superior military survival training would keep us safe and then my equally reckless hockey player friend Sean Abreu is with us watches an apron and at that point as the cameras abandoned southern Manhattan we'd ovet now when I say we'd owe then I don't mean that as a figure of speech I mean that well almost literally the water started coming up faster than we could have ever imagined definitely one of those situations where people use words like surge in you're like what does that mean and a few minutes later the waters in an entire foot now the middle of the city was higher ground and it wasn't wet but the edges the edges were closest to the water that's where we're on bikes there was a moment when we saw a guy a livery driver in his car who was stuck any for a virgin that was the only that was the only touch-and-go moment of the night you can leave [Music] this was like a fancy bank building and you can see the ATMs right there and you can also see the people who work in that building at the top of the escalator [Music] now I haven't reviewed this footage in a while but can you imagine being trapped in that building and seeing three guys on bikes in waist-deep water come up with a window [Music] this is South Street Seaport this is where there are a lot of tall buildings banks things like that this was the most shocking part of the night the water was literally at times chest deep like this and there were no emergency personnel anywhere no cops no firemen there was there were nothing [Music] power had gone out in parts of the city we could see the fire engines all but we were also very very alone this was the West Side Highway this was an eight-lane highway it was completely under water from one side to the other remember we got this fancier neighborhood in lower Manhattan and there was a car underwater there were a lot of cars underwater but there was one car underwater with flashing headlights it was a Bentley this is like a couple hundred thousand dollar car and somebody had left it out and it was submerged under water well who has a Bentley and leaves it out in one of the worst hurricanes in New York City's history [Music] [Music] good luck all right around midnight I said goodbye to my little brother I said goodbye to Shawn and my plan was to come here to the studio and edit this video like it was yesterday I remember riding my bike down Broadway one of the busiest streets in New York City and all the power on the west side of the street was out one side of the street pitch black the other side was still lit the other side still in power and that's where my office was a couple blocks from my office on my bike and all of a sudden like all the lights on this side of the street went out in that same moment for the first time ever my phone got the emergency alert and I scrambled to read it and it said get indoors in that moment for me was sheer terror it was dead silent it was pitch black I was completely alone in this city I've never felt so vulnerable is weird but it's the first time ever including Bob until now first time ever I've been completely alone in New York City in the absolute darkness my flashlight was the only source of light that was a moment of absolute terror for me Canada's not weren't married yet but I set out on the mission to go find her and I'm not waiting to her apartment I saw a large group of people gathered around this building I went and checked it out the entire facade the entire front of this building had collapsed that was my last experience of the night that's when I said this and I went in found Candice and sort of hung up my camera for the night if there was an epilogue to this movie it'd be that I was in fact the only one to get that footage and because of that there are a lot of companies that wanted it so I ended up licensing the footage to HBO Weather Channel national Geographics all the news people and I took all that money from licensing this footage and we bought clothes and supplies and I then donated them to the victims of the hurricane okay this concludes today's special presentation I hope you enjoyed it [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: CaseyNeistat

Views: 4,592,546

Rating: 4.9020624 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: TKOdMA97FGM

Length: 10min 44sec (644 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 23 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/TybotheRckstr]

After watching this video. I really admire what Casey did with the money. Not sure if he actually did it but if he did that is something that I think we need more of in this world.

[u/zukalous]

I have a feeling this is very similar to how he would document the zombie apocalypse.

[u/Abshole]

Who leaves a Bentley out? Someone that can afford another.

[u/mrwazsx]

Great movie. Is it me or was the studio footage extra crispy today?

[u/zukalous]

That flash of a disclaimer at the 1 min mark was for some of the commenters here. Soak it in guys.

[u/framaram]

I thought 9/11 was the scariest moment of his life. I'm confused.

[u/3264358]

I wonder how much he got for licensing all that footage.

[u/RiRoRa]

Not to be mean but he tries waaaay to hard to make it sound more dramatic than it was.

On a more general note I'm so tired of people ignoring common sense and warning in situations like this. Every storm/hurricane/tsunami/flood/whatever there's a bunch of idiots who think they're immortal and heads out to "experience it". What happens when they get in trouble? They'll risk the life/time/resources of emergency personnel for nothing. Super "cool".

[u/Yesiamtrulyme]

clickbait ever.