RETURN TO DISASTER IN MANHATTAN

THE STARSHIP'S FLIGHT PATH The GIF animation at left shows the flight-path of the starship as it crash-landed in New York City. It entered from the west, flying almost sideways. (The narrow end of the ship with the grey arrows is the vessel's front facing.) The starship's aft port corner touched down first, at the 79th Street entrance to the Henry Hudson Parkway on Manhattan's west side. The force of the impact absorbed by shields, screens and thick armour, the starship slid in a roughly south-by-southeast direction. As it did so, the tail end slowed down a bit, such that the ship was travelling almost nose-first by the time it reached Columbus Circle at the southwest corner of Central Park. The ship ground east across Central Park South until it hit its target, the Hotel Sortilege*. The enchantments protecting the hotel proved their worth, and withstood the collision; the hotel was not damaged. Because the starship had hit the Hotel square on, its remaining momentum carried the back end of the ship around in a clockwise west-to-east arc, grinding across the lower third of Central Park and much of the east side. Also at this time, the heat exhaust from the thrusters was doing additional damage. When the starship finally stopped moving, its nose was pointing west-by-northwest and its body stretched all the way to First Avenue, pushing debris onto the FDR drive, the Queensboro Bridge and into the East River. The damage is broken into three types, indicated with different colours on the map. The dark purple area is the part of Manhattan crushed/ground flat as the starship skidded across the island. The red areas to the north of the purple were not actually touched by the ship, but were severely burned by the heat exhaust from the thrusters. And finally, the dark green areas to the south of the ship's path are damaged by the debris and rubble pushed into them by the skidding ship... Can anyone help estimate cost the disaster, in terms of loss of life, people left homeless and value in dollars? *in real life, it is the Plaza Hotel