Film disaster becomes reality as Sandy blows in

WHEN Katarina smashed up New Orleans, we looked on in horror the way you would a foreign disaster movie — appalling, but not really something you could relate to.

But now that Sandy has flattened Manhattan, it is a familiar disaster movie come to life. Godzilla might not have been marching down Fifth Avenue eating cars, but in real life there is a Godzilla-sized crane dangling by a thread over the same street, threatening to decimate anything it falls on. Sandy’s FX should be nominated for an Oscar.

In the interests of life imitating art, my kids and I watch the Roland Emmerich disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow straight after watching the CNN news. Oh boy. Surging floods sweeping familiar Manhattan boulevards? Check. Frantic officials talking about the swamping of the eastern seaboard? Check. The New York subway submerged in floodwater? Major power blackouts? Cars floating down the street? Check, check, check. Most eerily of all, the movie poster showing the Statue of Liberty up to her armpits in a raging tsunami is uncannily similar to the real photos on the front pages of newspapers everywhere this week.