Not to mention the infrastructure damage(not that i am belittling human damage). It would take years and billions of dollars to repair. Imagine every window in New York blowing out?
The secondary damage would be much worse then primary.
Something like this actually happened in Ft. Worth back in 2000. It was caused by a tornado. Walking along the sidewalks afterwards was terrifying, as you never knew if a shard of glass might come swooshing down towards your head. They did, however, create several wooden structures like painter's scaffolding that you could walk under for protection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Fort_Worth_tornado
It caused half a billion dollars in damage.
But you really couldn't have prevented it. Minimized damage, debatable.
Though i would have to imagine a meteor over New York(same strength earlier today) would be much worse, probably even a worse case scenario?(again for same strength).
Meteors of this size your probably right, no easy way to prevent them. But i would not say that its impossible.
The secondary damage would be much worse then primary.