The cab driver says "Call me Ishmael," a reference to Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville, the namesake of Hurricane Herman.
Isaac "Ike" Anwhistle can whistle while having crackers in his mouth. He is so named because if one says Ike Anwhistle out loud, it sounds like, "I can whistle."
Larry uses one of the V.F.D. code phrases, "I didn't realize this was a sad occasion." Lemony Snicket recounts a waiter at the Anxious Clown saying this to him in the book Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography. The waiter then gave Lemony instructions for how to stealthily leave the country.
The children's reference to Haruki Murakami comes from his novel "Kafka on the Shore" : "And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."
Just before Larry gets a phone call at The Anxious Clown, the Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender is giving him the instructions for the pasta puttanesca the Baudelaires made in The Bad Beginning. Count Olaf also mentioned the dish in the previous episode when making up the story of how Captain Sham lost his leg.